tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Feb 23 10:14:24 1997
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Re: Memory Prime
On Sun, 23 Feb 1997, Ivan A Derzhanski wrote:
|Joel Peter Anderson wrote:
|> Then the barkeep, a surly fellow, spits in front of the character, who
|> dabs at the spittle with a cloth, and raises it to touch his forhead.
|> Alarmed at an action that would signify there betrothal, the barkeep
|> hurriedly shouts:
|>
|> "ghobe'! ghobe'!"
|
|Why not {Qo'!}? I thought {ghobe'} was `no' as in `that's not true',
|as opposed to {Qo'} `don't do that'.
-Qo' means "don't do that!" and as the imperative counterpart to -be'
needs to be suffixed to a verb (cf. TKD p. 47). The stand alone exclamation
Qo'! means "No! I won't! I refuse!" - N.B. your own refusal: *I* won't, *I*
refuse! (cf. TKD p. 104) - and would be the appropriate response had the
customer proposed (the reverse of what seems to be happening here).
The barkeep could also have exclaimed mev! "Stop that! Do not do that!"
This simple clipped command is used in PK to correct a misbehaving pet.
-- Voragh