tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jun 16 12:40:32 1997

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Re: KLBC: Uselessness & Aiming



According to David Trimboli:
> 
> jatlh qarnoS:
> 
> > I wanted to say "This information is of no use/useless to me" but was unsure
> > whether to use be' (not) or Ha' (undo) to negate lI' (useful, be useful), so
> > I tried both:
> 
> Sometimes this is indeed a difficult choice.  I tend towards using {-be'} when 
> possible, since {-Ha'} is an active undoing of something that was done, or 
> means that something was done incorrectly.  Unless you mean that the 
> information has *become* useless (was useful before), you probably want 
> {-be'}.  (Besides, from Conversational Klingon we have {wa'maH yIHmey lI'be'} 
> "10 useless tribbles.")

Yes, the different meanings of {-Ha'} can be confusing. In this
case, I would tend toward a slightly different interpretation,
though this is where all the confusion comes in. SuStel would
expect {lI'Ha'} to imply that something had been usefull and
then became useless.

Instead, I'd favor the {yajHa'} use of {-Ha'} and consider that
{lI'be'} means something was useless in a benign, perhaps
irritating, but not really important way. Useless and annoying.

Meanwhile, I would expect {lI'Ha'} to be more destructively
useless. It is not just useless. It is harmful. A disrupter
that will not fire is {lI'be'}. A disruptor that explodes in my
hand is {lI'Ha'}. A cloaking device that does not cloak is
{lI'be'}. A cloaking device that emits a signal easily
pinpointed with long range sensors is {lI'Ha'}.

Tribbles are borderline... Okrand was charitable to interpret
ten of them as {lI'be'}.

> Unfortunately, we don't have a ready word for "explosion."  {jorwI'} means 
> "explosive," not "explosion."  You might say this: {jorbogh Duj} "the ship 
> which explodes."  One *might* consider the word {jortaHghach}.  It does seem 
> to mean "explosion."

Or perhaps {jorchoHghach} or {chorDI'ghach}. Most explosions
don't really last all that long. I had a golf cart battery blow
up in my face once and I can testify. It is a very brief
experience. It was as if I had been beamed into a parallel
universe that was exactly like the one I had been standing in
before, except the old one had a battery in front of me, while
the new one had the internal pieces of a battery in front of
me, and my skin tingled a lot. I was quite surprised. I didn't
flinch, still standing, holding the two cables in the mid-air
where the terminals had been just a second ago, but I was quite
surprised.

I'd expect {jortaHghach} to refer to the physical phenominae
inside a star. I think that {-taH} is perhaps grabbed a little
too quickly for the service of {-ghach} and it doesn't always
fit all that well. And perhaps the destructive aftermath of an
explosion would be {jorpu'ghach} and the intentional crater of
a direct hit would be {jorta'ghach}.

> -- 
> SuStel
> Beginners' Grammarian
> Stardate 97455.6

charghwI'


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