tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Aug 05 06:59:56 1999

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Re: *muSHa'* yImuSHa'!



On Thu, 5 Aug 1999 06:07:01 -0400 Carleton Copeland 
<[email protected]> wrote:

> jIja':
> 
> > pItlh.
> 
> ja' charghwI':
> 
> > 'e' vIHon.
> 
> Well, you got that right.
> 
> > As truly sentient beings with a plethora of WIDELY
> > VARIED available experiences there is no single "supreme"
> > emotion. You disrespect the vast majority of people and their
> > experiences by defining how insignificant their chosen paths
> > are when compared to one that you particularly like.
> 
> jIQochbe'chu'.  How the [Klingon invective] you managed to interpret my 
> manifesto as exalting romantic love is beyond me.  Are we both speaking 
> DIvI' Hol?   I wrote:  "We [= I] challenge [= *invite*, akin to *taking the 
> Pepsi challenge*] those who find <muSHa'> outside their comfort zone to 
> jettison [= *discard*] tera'ngan romantic notions of love as the supreme 
> emotion.  [Such a notion of love is] wejpuH!"

It sounds a lot to me like, "Oh yeah? So you don't like 
{muSHa'}? Well, I DARE you to tell me that love is not the 
supreme emotion!" You challenged me to discard tera'ngan 
romantic notions of love as the supreme emotion. If you didn't 
think this was a nearly impossible task and certainly an 
unlikely case, then where is the challenge?
 
> I've always suspected that resistance to the word <muSHa'> had something to 
> do with its unromantic feel.  ("How do I un-hate thee?  Let me count the 
> ways".)  In other words, some are still looking for a lovey-dovey 
> translation, and I'm telling them to get over it and *muSHa'* yImuSHa'!

choyajbe'chu'taH. wa' DoS neH yIbuS. mu' "love" 'oHbe' wa' DoS. 
I have two problems with ANY word in Klingon being translated as 
"love" as you seemed to present it. First, the disparate 
meanings that have been arbitrarily assembled under the heading 
"love" in English do not deserve to be represented by a single 
word in ANY language. It was a mistake to do it in English and 
that mistake should not be reproduced in Klingon.

Second, there is no supreme emotion. Each has its turn.
 
> > THERE IS SO MUCH MORE TO FEEL THAN JUST LOVE,
> > and these other things are exactly as valid and meaningful.
> > Respect them.
> 
> bIlughbej.  I love <muSHa'> for this very reason:  it knocks love down a 
> peg by making it derivative of and paler than the stronger and more primary 
> emotion of hate.  (I'm sure you'd agree that hate, in the Klingon sense, 
> need not be destructive; it may be hate of dishonor and injustice, hate 
> that rouses us against evil, whereas love of a certain kind can lull us 
> into tolerance of these.)

muvuQbe' mu' <<muS>>.
 
> > My problem is that {muSHa'} as you propose it is not a word
> > for the Klingon language.  Instead, it is an encoding of the
> > English word "love" so that {muSHa'} can be as mindlessly
> > and meaninglessly used in Klingon as the word "love" is
> > mindlessly and meaninglessly used in English ... There is
> > always a clearer, more honest way to say whatever you are
> > trying to say with the word {muSHa'}.
> 
> Dajqu'.  I actually think natural languages thrive on vagueness and 
> ambiguity, but your argument that the lack of an all-purpose verb for 
> *love* might force Klingon speakers to recast and so be more concrete about 
> their meaning is something I hadn't considered--and should.

Every time I've argued against {muSHa'}, the core of my argument 
has been that if you really care about what you are saying (and 
if you are using the word "love", you SHOULD care about what you 
are saying), then there is always a better way to say it than 
with {muSHa'}. The better way may not be as easy or as brief, 
but then, why be lazy when you are trying to express love?

Would a lazy suitor recite bad poetry and dodge heavy objects? 
Would a lazy suitor endure the physical injury implicit in 
parmaq? If you were as lazy and careless in your actions as in 
your speech while courting a Klingon woman, you'd be removed 
from the gene pool by a Darwinian filter.

Speak as you act. pevIl yIqarchu'! mu' <<muSHa'>> yIlajQo'!
 
> > Meanwhile, my life is not on hold while I yearn for
> > resolution to a crushing need to fulfill the partnership
> > that your "supreme" emotion requires.
> 
> All this anger I seem to bring out makes me wonder.

No sense wondering. By just a couple weeks, I'm in recovery from 
unresolved Pong Phar and I have very little interest in 
revisiting that state.
 
> > A number of people here on this list love to argue.
> 
> qa' wIje'meH maSuv.
> 
> qa'ral
> 
> P.S. to Sustel:  Thanks for your concern, but I'm not so easily insulted or 
> scared.  The list wouldn't be Klingon without the occasional round of 
> forehead butting.

tlhIngan SoH! tlhIngan maH!

charghwI' 'utlh



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