tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Sep 10 11:53:43 1997
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Re: Age
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Age
- Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 14:53:31 -0400 (EDT)
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]> from "David Trimboli" at Sep 9, 97 10:30:22 pm
According to David Trimboli:
>
> [email protected] on behalf of Neal Schermerhorn wrote:
> > ghItlh charghwI': On my forty second birthday, I said: loSmaH ben jIbogh.
> > On the day after my forty second birthday and the 363 other days of this
> > year, I said or will say: loSmaH ben jIboghpu'.
>
> vIt SuStel: wa'Hu' jIboghpu'.
>
> wejpuH.
>
> --
> SuStel
> qoH vuvbe' SuStel
> Stardate 97691.4
wejpuH, indeed. Okrand explained that to say, "I'm 42 years
old," the preferred method is to say, {loSmaH cha'ben
jIboghpu'}. People complained about the {-pu'} and I explained
why I saw it as correct (though apparently I left off {cha'}).
People then pointed out, as you now have, that the same
construction would not be lying for any age lower than what we
consider to be our age.
In other words, as one who is 42 years old, I could say
{cha'maHben jIboghpu'} because the literal translation is
"Twenty years ago, I had been born," which is true, but that's
not my age.
Realize that in English, "I am 42 years old," is an idiom. What
it really means is that 42 years ago, today, I had been born,
but 43 years ago, I had not been born yet." We count our age in
whole numbers of years, for no particular reason and we use an
integer function instead of a rounding function, also for no
particular reason. We could have as easily considered anyone
from 41.5 to 42.4999... years old to be 42, and anyone from
42.5 to 43.4999... years old to be 43.
Other languages state age in the form "I have 42 years." This
is but another idiom. Klingon can just as easily have an
idiomatic way to telling your age. Just say {loSmaH cha'ben
jIboghpu'} and stop complaining.
By the way, that's a quote from WAAAAY back there. Old posts
never die. They just wait to be discussed AGAIN.
charghwI'