tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Sep 20 20:43:30 1997
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law' - puS improvisation...
- From: "Neal Schermerhorn" <[email protected]>
- Subject: law' - puS improvisation...
- Date: Sat, 20 Sep 1997 23:46:43 -0400
ghItlh ghunchu'wI':
> >{}
> >"Nothing costs more than an error."
>
> Huh? I recognize the words, and the grammar, and it indeed *translates*
as
> what you say. But what do you intend it to *mean*? I think you're
relying
> on English idiom here. Look at it the other way and see what happens:
> "A mistake costs less than nothing does." The meaning seems backwards.
'ej ghItlh Tad Stauffer:
> To me, the phrase is merely (intentionally) ambiguous - using the
"law'/puS
>construction without the law'/puS", translated it would be something like,
>"Nothing's expensiveness is many, an error's expensiveness is few."
I think you've missed the point. The grammar is arguable. The problem is
that in English 'nothing' is used two ways. Your English quote "Nothing
costs more than an error" implies that errors are very expensive - there is
no thing which is more expensive. Your Klingon *pagh wagh Sagh Qagh wagh
Dogh* translates literally as "Nothing's expensiveness is serious, an
error's expensiveness is silly" - just the opposite of the previous
example. The Klingon implies that the expense of a null, of no thing, is
greater than the expense of an error. The cost of an error is less than the
cost of no thing.
In the Klingon, the pagh refers to zip - the cost of zip is clearly zero.
It implies that an error is even cheaper than that. The English yields the
more expected meaning, that there is no greater cost than the cost of an
error.
Qermaq