tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Feb 02 13:28:14 1999

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Re: KLBC: Two things...

I've recently seen several posts exhibiting some confusion about 
the "scattered all about" plurals. Let's take it from the top, 
shall we?

If you take one of those rare nouns which has a separate form in 
the singular as in the plural, like:

{peng}="torpedo"
{cha}="torpedoes"

and use the singular form with a plural suffix, like {pengmey}, 
then it gets the "scattered all about" meaning.

Also, if you take a noun that would normally be pluralized with 
{-pu'} and use {-mey} instead, it also means "scattered all 
about". It is not insulting those beings capable of using 
language to use this suffix, as it would to use the "wrong" Type 
4 noun suffix (-lIj} instead of {-lI'} for example). It just 
means "scattered all about".

In some poetry, {-mey} is also used on nouns normally pluralized 
by {-Du'}, but in general speech, this is considered a blunder. 
In those rare poems, it acquires the meaning "scattered all 
about", but this is one of those things you just don't do while 
speaking Klingon. It is a very cryptic form of poetry.

Note that there is no way to pluralize a common noun normally 
pluralized with {-mey} such that it takes on the "scattered all 
about" meaning. For that, you'd have to reconsider what you are 
trying to say and use some other mechanism to do it.

In this particular example of "ideas scattered all over the 
place", we have a special problem, since ideas don't have a 
literal location, unless one considers the idea to be located in 
the brain, in which case one could hardly consider one person's 
ideas to be scattered all about unless their BRAIN were 
scattered all about. If you bothered your average Klingon too 
many times asking him how to say that sort of thing, then you 
might find YOUR ideas scattered all about. {{:)>

To express that thought, I'd just say:

Qoch qechmeylIj.

Your ideas disagree.

I have no record of Okrand's usage of {Qoch}, so I don't know if 
he has ever used it transitively as many people here like to do. 
I don't tend to use it transitively because of the definition, 
but if Okrand DOES wind up using it to mean "disagree WITH", 
then I'd use {Qoch'chuq qechmeylIj.} Meanwhile, I instead tend 
to use it intransitively as in {jIQoch} meaning that context 
makes clear with whom I am disagreeing, or {maQoch} where the 
plural includes the disagreeing parties.

charghwI' 'utlh

On Tue, 2 Feb 1999 11:56:43 -0800 (PST) TPO <[email protected]> 
wrote:

> >Leave <qechmeyraj> as it is, but read it as "your ideas scattered all over
> >the place."
> 
> IMHO, putting -mey on qech wouldn't imply "scattered about"
> 
> DloraH

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