tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Apr 27 11:01:15 1999
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Re: {-Hom}: descriptive or pejorative?
Voragh:
>Note that these explanations are purely descriptive or logical; no moral
>judgements are implied. (Note that in KCD we're told that {Qa'Hom} can
>be used as an insult, but that is due to the nature of the animal -
>{Ha'DIbaH}, another insult! - not because of the suffix.)
ghunchu'wI':
: There is this missive from Okrand a few months ago to consider:
:
: >Maltz did say, however, that he'd heard the term <'ujHom>
: >used in a story about a merchant lacking honor, something
: >about the merchant not filling the order properly.
The entire story is insulting, not the suffix - which is a comment about
{'uj},
that it's too small. If the {'uj} measuring stick is shorter than it should
be, the merchant cheats the customer by measuring out less cloth for the same
price. It's like having a set of light weights.
If {-Hom} were a pejorative, I would expect to find it attached to merchant:
*{SuyHom} "nasty/despicable/vulgar little merchant". This sense is fairly
close to what {-qoq} does, particularly when said with a sneer.
There are many ways to insult someone in Klingon. Using {-Hom} isn't one of
them.
pe'vIl mu'qaDmey tIbach!
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons