Re: Love

[Carleton Copeland <copeland@eycis.com>]

I know I'm flogging a dead sargh but ... 

/mu'ghom vIgherbogh/, famously unreliable, lists "muSHa' - to love (lit. to dis-hate)."  Is this a canonic translation or just another "MSN thingee"?  If the former, perhaps there's a reason.

No one in the recent /SachtaH Holmaj/ discussion (save perhaps SuStel) seemed persuaded by my suggestion that /qamuSHa'/ might be a delightfully twisted Klingon equivalent of "I love you," rather than meaning something more like "I used to hate you, but don't any more."

As I said then, what intrigued me about /muSHa'/, /parHa'/, /tungHa'/, and /Qochbe'/ is their evocation of a culture in which it's more "normal" to hate, dislike, discourage and disagree than the reverse.  The fun is spoiled, as is the pun in /muSHa'/, if these words are no more than the literal sum of their roots (dis-hate, not disagree, etc.).

I also note (continuing to flog) that, whereas people seemed to feel that such negated forms would be avoided by native speakers, some of the same people persist in using /vIparHa'/--and in situations in which they plainly do not mean "I no longer dislike it."

laDwI'pu'vaD jItlhIj.  I truly would have let this sleeping targh lie if "Love" hadn't flowered anew on the list.

QInwIj bojangDI' tuquvmoH!

qa'ral