tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Nov 28 16:38:59 1997

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Re: squadron officers



William H. Martin wrote:
> 
> My problem with all of these is "squadron" is being used as a
> unit of measure. We have special verbs for "to have a weight of"
> and "to have a length of". These need to be special verbs
> because we are talking about units of measure. We know well how
> to give the simple count of objects, but peHruS is trying to use
> the word "squadron" as if it were like the word "dozen" and we
> simply don't have any Klingon words that really work this way,
> nor would we have good grammar to explain how we would use them.
> Would they require another measurement verb? I honestly don't
> know.

I think that it's probably both overkill and Klinglish.  From all we've
seen, a Klingon squadron has three or four ships in it (although that's
never been explicitly stated in canon - Trek continuity canon, that
is).  The idea is "lots" of officers... but (1) Klingons probably
wouldn't say that (accuracy and straightforwardness); and (2) a
"squadron" of 3 or 4 officers is hardly impressive (unless the
comparison is more along the lines of "a squadronful of officers", which
might be 40 or 50 officers - now, *that* might be impressive!)

-- 
Qob la' (tlh.w.D. quttaj ra'wI')       [email protected]
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