Re: KLBC: mu'qaD Etymology

["William H. Martin" <whm2m@virginia.edu>]

While Okrand has definitely hidden puns into words [It just hit 
me yesterday that the use of {mI'} as both "dance" and "number" 
may be an intentional word play as the dance band "plays another 
number"] it is also true that he explicitly explains in TKD that 
you can't reverse-engineer words. Nouns are often polysyllabic 
and the syllables do not necessarily relate to similar 
monosyllabic words.

The same is true in English. If I am disheveled, does that 
suggest that I was ever sheveled or heveled?

I feel fairly confident that the curses were developed primarily 
because they contain beautifully forceful sounds that actually 
SOUND like curses. They FEEL like curses. Yell them and even if 
you don't know exactly what they mean, you feel that same relief 
that you feel with a potent curse. For me, it is particularly 
effective because I don't tend to curse all that much in English 
because I tend to think too much about what the curses mean and 
the curses in English are generally quite perverse. I mean, I 
can quickly think of one classic English curse that refers to a 
shared bodily function I happen to be rather FOND of. Why should 
THAT be a CURSE? Meanwhile, if I hit my thumb with a hammer 
and let out a good {Qu'vatlh!}, I really feel better. {{:)>

charghwI' 'utlh

On Sat, 4 Sep 1999 11:26:22 EDT J242110559@aol.com wrote:

> I've noticed that some of the tlhIngan Hol curses seem to have interesting 
> etymologies.
> 
> QI'yaH      military duty station (QI' + yaH)
> Qu'vatlh    dutyhundred (Qu' + vatlh)
> toDSaH      care about rescue (toD + SaH)
> taHqeq      survival drill (taH + qeq)
> yIntagh     life lung (yIn + tagh)
> va          shortened form of Qu'vatlh (according to the TKD addendum, p. 178)
> ghuy'cha' and ghay'cha' could be related.
> 
> Some of these don't seem to make much sense, like Qu'vatlh and yIntagh. But 
> toDSaH and taHqeq are kind of interesting. Caring about being rescued (or 
> needing to be rescued in the first place) is probably not a good thing to the 
> Klingons. And why on Qo'noS would anybody actually want to practice surviving 
> (survival drill)? QI'yaH, on the other hand, seems kind of counterintuitive 
> (why would a duty station be a bad thing?). Do you know if MO did toDSaH and 
> taHqeq on purpose?
> 
> 
> - DujHoD