tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Dec 15 09:41:17 1998
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Re: Problem Words
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Problem Words
- Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 12:41:07 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
- Priority: NORMAL
On Sun, 13 Dec 1998 06:22:24 -0800 (PST) Neal Schermerhorn
<[email protected]> wrote:
> ghItlh charghwI':
...
> >telDaq wovmoHwI'mey
> >Wing Lights
> >
> >The Cat In The Hat returns. Note the locative with no verb,...
>
> Perhaps this isn't wrong, as we're looking at a list. He could have said
> <telDaq lujomlu' wovmoHwI'mey> and made more grammatical sense, but maybe
> for space the rather obvious <lujomlu'> was dropped. (Would it be <mIv
> tuQbogh vIghro''e'>?)
I believe that the whole point of "Cat in the Hat" is that it is
ambivalent in English, since, as I remember the cover to the
book, the cat is wearing a hat, and it is also sitting in an
upturned hat. Seuss was playing with this ambiguity in English.
Meanwhile, in Klingon, it is not ambiguous. You would have to
decide whether it meant {mIv tuQbogh vIghro''e'} or {vIghro''e'
ngaSbogh mIv} or {mIvDaq ba'bogh vIghro'}. If this ambiguosity
was more important to you than the literal meaning of the title,
you might instead go for a similarly ambiguous Klingon title,
like:
mIvDaq ba'bogh vIghro' vIbej.
Now, who is in the hat? You, or the cat? There is no way, in one
sentence, to disambiguate this statement, since {mIvDaq} has to
preceed the relative clause whether it applies to the relative
clause or to the main clause, since if a locative refers to a
verb and a direct object also is linked to that same verb, the
locative has to come first.
Plus, you get to make cool English retranslations, like:
"I watch in the hat the cat who sat."
Maybe I should become the Klingon Dr. Suess. chaq SuS Qel vImoj.
Cool.
> Qermaq
charghwI' 'utlh