tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu May 16 22:15:38 1996
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Re: Phonology & surroundings
- From: [email protected] (Alan Anderson)
- Subject: Re: Phonology & surroundings
- Date: Fri, 17 May 1996 00:18:45 -0500
>At 05:36 PM 5/14/96 -0700, wIghbe' wrote:
>>Here's another one.
>>
>>Would anyone care to speculate on where I stole the following quote from?
>>
>>HomDu' mateqchugh, vaj yIvlu'DI' chuSbe', qar'a'?
>
>In my best Klingon I would say it says something like: "Be accurate, as soon
>as it's quiet chew so, if we take of bones"
Klingon word order isn't strictly the reverse of English. Phrases still
make sense when read in left-to-right order.
You got "if we take off the bones" right.
{-DI'} is on the verb {yIv}, so that part is "as soon as one chews it"
or "as soon as it is chewed".
{chuSbe'} is literally "not be noisy" -- "quiet" would be {tam}.
Don't neglect the suffix {-'a'} on {qar} -- it means "is it accurate?"
or, colloquially, "right?"
The whole sentence, literally translated, becomes:
"If we take out the bones, then when one chews it it isn't noisy, right?"
>It's either that ST film when they swipe the Enteprise, or it's in SW just
>before the Imperial Stormtoppers come into the landing bay.
No, it's the "Whizzo Chocolates" sketch from Monty Python. The inspector
has just asked about the candy named "Crunchy Frog": "Don't you even take
the bones out?" The answer: "If we took the bones out, it wouldn't be
crunchy, now, would it?"
-- ghunchu'wI' batlh Suvchugh vaj batlh SovchoH vaj