tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Mar 01 14:10:27 1997
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Re: "taHqeq"
nuQum qoror (Marian Schwartz):
| jav) If people can loosen their grip on reality and delve into the
|history of Kronos, I have a word origin speculation. "taHqeq" is anepithet for
|a person. "taH" means "continue, endure, go on," and "qeq" means "military
|drill." Originally, "taHqeq" would mean "a continuing drill," but it would have
|(sorry, might have), evolved into "an officer who keeps on drilling his
|soldiers," and later "a person who keeps on performing the same tired routine
|over and over." For Klingons, who crave action, this would be a terrible
|insult, and, later, an epithet.
>From the Hypertext Webster:
mar-ti-net n. 1. A rigid military disciplinarian. 2. A person who demands
absolute adherence to rules: a martinet about his children's schooling.
[After Jean Martinet (d. 1672), a French army officer.]
Hmmm... if you're right about its derivation, I can think of a couple of
grammar taHqeqpu' on this listserv who shall remain nameless. {{;-)
Of course, we really don't know anything at all about the origin of this
epithet. Okrand says on CK: "If you call someone this, stand back! This is
a classic insult." I think that we only have one example of it used in Trek
(correct me if I'm wrong): When Picard failed to convince Governor Vagh
that the Federation wasn't supplying weapons to Kriosian rebels, Vagh lost
his temper and shouted, "You speak the lies of a tahkeck!" (The Mind's Eye)
-- Voragh
FYI, the handy Hypertext Webster can be found at:
http://c.gp.cs.cmu.edu:5103/prog/webster
It's perfect for looking up a word while you're emailing someone (or
analyzing someone's grammar). The Online Oxford English Dictionary is
another must-have bookmark, but it usually provides too much information
about a word--if there can be such a thing!