tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue May 22 06:51:25 2001
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Re: Puns - qID mu'mey
From: "Patrick Masterson" <[email protected]>
> I'm rather curious about the puns that Okrand slipped into the language.
> I've written a list of puns that either I've found, or I remember someone
> here talking about. [. . .] I think some of the ones I have might
> not qualify as puns.
You should remove the onomatopoeia (what's the plural of that?) from the
list. They may be cute, but they could legitimately have been formed by
Klingons without reference to English or humans. A few of these would be:
HIq (Do Klingons hiccup?)
'aw' (It's what you say when something stings you, and could be for Klingons
too.)
pIw (maybe)
yay (maybe)
tIq (unlikely, but it's not inconceivable that Klingons associate the
workings of the heart with clockwork, as do many human traditions, so I
thought I'd include it here for completeness.)
yIH (This is definitely what Klingons would say if they encountered a
tribble.)
'argh (getting the idea?)
wup (When I first saw this word, I realized it was EXACTLY the right word!
/wup/ is exactly the sound I think of when I imagine people bursting into
song.)
paw' (The sound the colliding objects make.)
and a couple not on your list that come to mind:
'ugh (It's what you say when you try to lift something heavy.)
'uH (It's what you say when you have a hangover.) (These two might be more
or less interchangable, and the difference is just the addition of or lack
of voicing on the last consonant.)
'oy' (Another unlikely one, but it's a possible sound associated with pain.)
paw (Kinda-sorta. This is /paw'/ without the impact at the end.)
My own lists are not intended to be complete. I was just thinking and
typing.
Looking at your list, I notice quite a few that could be added. Better not
continue to post them here, though: you'll deprive others of the fun of
noticing them for themselves and telling everyone, "Hey, didja notice THIS
one . . . ?" Those of us who were doing that when they first came out might
miss the point that we had fun doing it, so we shouldn't deprive others of
the same entertainment.
> Also, is nughI' considered a pun, or just a borrowing from English
> like qa'vIn?
We are explicitly told that /nughI'/ is a borrowing from English.
SuStel
Stardate 1389.7