tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Nov 14 08:25:37 1997

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RE: bIQ'a' Doq bIngDaq : P.S.

ja' "Anthony.Appleyard" <[email protected]>:
>  Thank you again for letting me take up so much of your time and this group's
>email space. I will try to reduce the emount of messages that I send from now
>on. I realise that I had become much too enthusiastic and too voluminous.

Qo'!  bIlab 'e' yImevQo'.  lI'qu' jabbI'ID ngeHbogh nongwI'.
laDlaH Hoch 'ej ghojlaH.

>  Sorry: I wasn't trying to justify my usage. I accept your corrections.

bItlhIjtaH 'e' yImev jay'! :-)  qalughmoH 'e' Dalajchugh, Dalaj neH.
bIDochHa'nISbe'.  bIpujlaw'.  reH juja'mo' <jItlhIj>, loQ chonuQchoH.

>I can appreciate using {ghIr} to mean the process of beginning a dive.

mu'ghomwIj vIlaDta'.  reH {ghIr} 'oSlaw' "dive".

In the dictionary I have, every definition of the verb "dive" involves
descending motion:  plunge, fall, drop, plummet, lunge or leap downward.

I'm not arguing with the fact that "SCUBA diving" doesn't actually mean
continuous descending.  I'm pointing out that "dive" in this context is
somewhat of a jargon word, and I think its special meaning is largely
irrelevant to the language in which it is expressed.  Since the "stay 
at one depth" connotation is assumed from context, I'd be willing to 
rely on that same contextual connotation for the word {ghIr}.

>> Our ship (Sea Surveyor) fled from the wind.
>  I am sorry about the strange wording:-

qay'be' mu'meylIj'e'.  chong mu'tay'.  mumISmoH pab'e'.

There's not really a problem with the wording itself.  You have used
the vocabulary effectively and conveyed pretty much what you wanted 
to.  The real strangeness came from your use of aspect suffixes.

>> It had approached the Gulf of Aqaba
>  I intended "It went along the G. of A.". For {ghoS} TKD gives quite a range
>of meanings.

That doesn't look like a perfective statement.  You used {ghoSpu'} in 
the Klingon, which indicates that at the time in question, the action 
was already complete.  I think you were just wanting past tense, and
{-pu'} isn't appropriate.  And if you really need more precision than
this, consider something like  {"Gulf of Aqaba" He ghoS}.

>> and it had orbited Ras Muhammad
>  I intended "it rounded [the headland called] R.M.": but "orbited" was the
>nearest that I could find.

How about {juS}?  And again, {-pu'} seems wrong for your meaning.

>> and it had hidden between Sha`b Mahmud and the land. I had been excited."
>  For "hid" I wanted "sheltered".

For the "shelter" idea I'd suggest {yoD} or {Qan} or even {QaDmoH}, 
though keeping an ocean vessel "dry" seems a tiny misapplication of 
the idiom. :-)

My confusion about this paragraph stems not from your choice of words,
but from your tossing {-pu'} on all the verbs except the first:

  >SuSvo' Haw' Dujmaj (Sea Surveyor).
  >Gulf_of_Aqaba ghoSpu' 'ej Ras_Muhammad bavpu' 'ej Sha`b_Mahmud
  >(= Mahmud naghmey) puH je jojDaq So'pu'. jISeypu'.

I took the opening sentence {Susvo' Haw' Dujmaj} as setting the time 
of the narrative, so the perfective aspect of the rest of the story 
said to me that all those events had already taken place when the ship
fled from the wind.  The last sentence's place in the scheme of things
is doubly uncertain -- had you been excited when the ship hid, or was
the completion of your being excited simultaneous with the completion 
of the ship's hiding?

I hope you understand the trouble I had with this, and I hope you'll 
be able to recognize the situation in the future and be able to write 
more clearly because of it.

-- ghunchu'wI'

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