tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Sep 08 16:42:37 1997

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing



[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: "Cylinder"



At 04:04 PM 9/8/97 -0700, SI'IluD wrote:

>I need to describe a cylinder. I have used this phrase:
>
>gho jan tIq

A long circle device might be oval, but I can't see you getting much closer.
I think I threw my hands in the air in frustration while trying to describe
sushi preparation in Klingon, for lack of a word for cylinder.  Also
consider ideas like {naQ rur} {HIvje' rur} and {gho bIH Dopmey'e'}.  There's
also the geometric route: {He chong ghoSchugh gho Dochvam Del}.  Yeah right.
Cylinder is a toughie. 

>Also, is there any consensus that adding "tlhegh" to
>form a complex noun renders that as a row of the primary noun?

Well, {tlhegh} is "rope" or "line."  I'd read {Dujtlhegh} as "painter" or
"sheet" or one of those other ropes you're not allowed to call a rope when
you're on a boat, rather than a line of vessels.  If the noun were a sort of
being like {vetlhtlhegh} (shudder) I'd think of it as a marching formation.
If the noun were something that wouldn't logically have a line or rope
attached to it, then I'd probably start thinking "row of N."  {beghtlhegh}
I'd read as "deflector array" without a lot of thought.  But that's me.
There certainly isn't a consensus.  We're KLINGONISTS after all.  :)

Qov  ([email protected])
Beginners' Grammarian



Back to archive top level