tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Dec 27 18:41:22 1997
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Re: Whereever he is
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Whereever he is
- Date: Sat, 27 Dec 1997 21:40:18 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
- Priority: NORMAL
On Fri, 26 Dec 1997 21:10:06 -0800 (PST) WestphalWz
<[email protected]> wrote:
> In a message dated 97-12-25 11:58:23 EST, you write:
>
> << killing him wherever he is. You can't kill him anywhere
> else, after all...
>
> If the idea of finding him is important, just {DaH yISam 'ej
> yIHoH}. >>
> -------------------------------peHruS answers Edy Fonseca--------------------
>
> yISam means "locate him" having sought and found.
I know that. My command is not to look for him. I want you to
FIND him.
> yInej deserves some
> consideration.
I considered it and intentionally preferred {Sam}.
> I don't know if you meant to write Dat; you wrote DaH.
I meant to write {DaH}. The sense of "kill him where he stands"
has a focus on immediacy and {DaH} seemed natural for that.
{Dat} would have been gibberish with the verb {Sam}. You may
look everywhere for him, but you won't find him in more than one
place, after all.
I do make mistakes from time to time, but this time you have
mistakenly assumed that I did not intentionally and comfortably
choose each word in my sentence when I did just that.
> Finally, when we have a series of commands, we do not use 'ej.
We don't do we? Well, it is true that Okrand has not done this,
but the only example I can remember where it would have been
natural for him to do so was when he was ordering a targh to
bite somebody's leg off. That was notedly clipped Klingon. My
example wasn't clipped. I doubt we have enough evidence to
sternly chastize someone for being WRONG for using {'ej} between
two commands.
> This gives Dat ghaH yInej; yIHoH.
No, it doesn't. It gives me {DaH yISam 'ej yIHoH.} If I were
yelling it at a targh, I'd say, {Sam! HoH!} {Dat ghaH yInej!} is
not something I'd say. I don't want people looking everywhere. I
want them looking where he is. If I were going to direct the
search, I'd be more specific than {Dat}. If I didn't have any
better suggestions than that, I'd just say, {yISam} because I
want him found.
Unless, I guess, I was passing on orders for troops to find a
friend of mine that I didn't want them to find, then I'd likely
say {Dat jupwI' yInej. boSamchugh vaj SuHegh, 'ach yInejtaH!}
I'd probably point out to them that they get paid by the hour.
That should take care of it.
> Then there's the possibility of: ghaH DaSampu'DI' yIHoH, meaning Kill him as
> soon as you have found him.
Quite true. {DaSamta'DI'} might be an even more appropriate
choice.
> peHruS
charghwI', taghwI' pabpo' ru'
Temporary Beginner's Grammarian, December 20-30