tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Dec 04 08:36:06 1995
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Re: KLBC - hello and questions
>Date: Sun, 3 Dec 1995 21:14:09 -0800
>From: [email protected] (Alan Anderson)
>If it's a wodcutters' axe, I suggest {Sur chopwI'} "tree biter". :-)
>What would I use a battle axe for? Ah, it's a {DeS chevwI'}!
>Watch out for "translations" like these, though. Unless you already
>know what I mean, you certainly wouldn't understand "arm separator" as
>"battle axe", would you? {DeS chevmeH nuH} is only a little better.
Watch it. These are classic examples of hindsight words. If I were
reading a text and came across a sentence like "He took up his tree-biter
and went outside," I'd be totally confused. I'd try to figure out if maybe
he has a pet termite or anteater, or what... and generally wouldn't know
what the hell the sentence said. Even if we were talking about a battle
and you said how "his arm-biter wounded the enemy's neck"... what the
hell's an arm-biter? Are you being poetic and describing his mouth, which
he uses to bite arms? Think about how you'd feel if you came across that
sentence in English. Would you have any guess that it was an axe if you
didn't know beforehand?
>>Of course these are only coursory discriptions, if I wanted to describe
>>an axe fully, I would write a long paragraph to describe the item in detail.
>Of course. My concise descriptions are useless for someone who doesn't know
>what an axe looks like, or how it's used, or why one would use it. They are
>also not appropriate in a context where it's not obvious that I'm trying to
>refer to an axe. If I mentioned that my wife just misplaced the "turner",
>I definitely would not expect anyone to understand immediately what I meant.
>If I had been discussing my son's desire for fried eggs, my meaning would, I
>hope, become obvious. Context is a magical thing.
They're also useless for anyone who doesn't *already* know you're using
that word for "axe," context or no. Context may be magical, but it is not
miraculous. It can't transfer concepts well from your mind into the mind
of your reader: that's what the *language* and words are for.
~mark