tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Feb 16 07:36:31 1997

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RE: Word Origin Speculation II

D'armand Spears recently called into question the existence of a category of 
related words called "reversies" in which words which are either synonyms and 
antonyms or related in some other way are created by simply reversing the 
order of the phonemes.  it was not my intention to provide a complete list.  i 
felt that readers were intelligent enough to do that for themselves.  however, 
now that I have been challenged, I should like to provide a longer list of 
examples.

SIm/mIS (calculate/confuse)
jab/baj (serve food -- as a job/earn)
je/'ej (and/and)
joq/qoj (and/or)
ghap/pagh (either/or)
mup/pum (strike, fall)
ghup/pugh (swallow, dregs)

This brings the total to twelve -- does twelve "reversies" constitute a 
significant observation?  qatlhochnIS!

Another category which d'armand Spears appears to be unaware of is those words 
which use q a Q as semantically related phonemes.  (I say this because of his 
rejection of the pair puq/Qup (child, young)

qam/Qam (foot, stand)
wuq/wuQ (decide, headache)
qay'/Qay' (problem, blow one's top)
qeH/QeH (resent, be angry)
qaq/QaQ (preferable, good)

There are other examples, but you would surely see them as stretches.
rarchuqbogh mu'mey boghovlaHchugh, mu'tay'lIj boghurmeH ngeDqu'.

G.F. Proechel (pIntIn)

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