tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 20 10:39:04 2000
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Re: titles
Karg:
: It is my undestanding that HoD is used as a rank only. If Bob's ship
Nope. {HoD} can be used all by itself:
De' Sov qar'a' HoD
De' Sov HoD qar'a'
The captain knows the information, right? TKD
'ach HoD, Hevetlh wIghoSchugh veHtIn wI'el maH'e'.
But Captain, that course will take us into the [Great] Barrier
as well. ST5
HoD QaQbe' ghaH; reH to'waQ yIv
He/she is not a good captain; he/she always chews ligament. KGT
: CO's rank is Captain then this is appropriate. However, if he only holds
: the POSITION of Captain, as in being the commanding officer of a ship,
: then ra'wI' is more appropriate since it means "one who commands".
You're right about {ra'wI'} being the word for the position/function of
commander, commanding officer, etc. When in doubt about Klingon rank insignia,
it's never wrong to address the one in charge as {ra'wI'}; in fact, all ship
captains were called commanders in TOS, which generated a great deal of
speculation in pre-TNG fandom.
We know very little about Klingon nautical traditions. Perhaps {HoD} also
means {Duj ra'wI'} "one who commands a ship" regardless of official rank, as it
does in English. OTOH, note that in the three examples I cited above, {HoD}
seems to refer to previously mentioned individuals, just as we can refer to
"the general", "the major", etc. in English. Azetbur says to one of her
generals in ST6:
ghu'maj Dayajbe'law' Sa'
[You don't seem to grasp our situation, General. (ST6 novel)]
: But I'm pretty new to all of this so I might be wrong.
qay'be'. You couldn't know this just from TKD. That's why I maintain my
database of canon, i.e. {tlhIngan Hol} as used by Marc Okrand in sentences and
dialogue. It comes in handy for just this type of discussion.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons