tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Feb 25 20:38:29 1999

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Re: SIv (Re: Hello)



ja' peHruS:
>...I disagreed with you, charghwI', about the pieces of a kit not
>being {naQ}. I feel that the kit contains all the pieces, even though they are
>not put together.

I can accept a kit being complete if it contains all the pieces of a ship,
but it is a complete *kit*, not a complete *ship*.  It is all of a ship,
{Duj Hoch}, but a {Duj naQ} would be a "whole ship", a ship which is full,
a ship which is entire, a ship which is complete.

>...My one and only real disagreement was that fuel or chemical
>compounds, for example, would be "intact" but not "complete" or "whole."  I
>felt that a chemical compound would be a different entity, intact unto itself,
>all there, but a different substance altogether. I still feel that the new
>substance would be {naQ}.

That's a reasonable position, but it doesn't take into account the reason
I proposed my interpretation.  A slice of bread is a whole slice of bread,
but it is not a whole sandwich.  A collection of United States commemorative
stamps can be a full collection of United States commemorative stamps, but
it is not a full collection of United States stamps of every kind.  A pie
can easily be a complete pie but still be an incomplete dinner.

While hydrogen peroxide is certainly complete as hydrogen peroxide goes, it
is an incomplete fuel.  It is the primary consumable of one kind of rocket
propulsion system, and is still called a fuel, even though it relies on a
separate catalytic substance to be useful.

[And saying that was your "one and only real disagreement" is a bit of
an understatement, though I don't think itemizing the other points of
contention I remember would be very productive now.]

-- ghunchu'wI'




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