tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Feb 25 12:07:52 1999
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Re: RE: KLBC: double -bogh verbs
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: RE: KLBC: double -bogh verbs
- Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 15:06:39 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
- Priority: NORMAL
On Thu, 25 Feb 1999 09:44:09 -0800 (PST) Steven Boozer
<[email protected]> wrote:
...
> De gustibus non disputandum est, of course, but this is merely pagh's own
> stylistic preference. We've seen Okrand do it both ways:
>
> romuluSngan Sambogh 'ej HoHbogh nejwI'
> Romulan hunter-killer probe
> (this device is also called a {HoHwI'} for short) KCD
This example has often bothered me, but looking harder at it, I
can see that if he had put it as {romuluSngan Sambogh nejwI' 'ej
HoHbogh} it would have looked a lot like a probe that finds a
Romulan and kills him. While I might personally find such a
device highly useful, I'm afraid that would be false
advertising, since THIS device apparently finds and kills
KLINGONS. I suspect this awkward wording was used to try to get
around that problem.
In most cases, I'd tend to agree with pagh that it really works
better not to make the listener wait until after the second verb
to identify the subject for the first one.
> SuDbogh Dargh 'ej wovbogh
> The tea that is {SuD} and light. KGT
>
> which last is a variant of:
>
> SuD Dargh 'ej wov. KGT
> The tea is {SuD} and light.
>
> both meaning roughly "light green tea".
>
> (Don't you hate it when I do this?)
Not especially. You still found two to one preference for what
is almost certainly a stylistically better construction.
> --
> Voragh
> Ca'Non Master of the Klingons
charghwI' 'utlh