RE: cha'DIch KLBC rI'

["Vlodnak" <vlodnak@paintballgames4u.com>]

majQa'!  vIyaj 'ej vIQochbe'!

> -----Original Message-----
> From: willm@cstone.net [mailto:willm@cstone.net] 
> Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 15:11
> To: tlhIngan-Hol@kli.org
> Subject: RE: cha'DIch KLBC rI'
> 
> 
> > > I have a question about nuqneh.  You say that it does not 
> mean hello 
> > > , that I understand but in TKD and on the tape they use 
> it as a form 
> > > of greeting .
> > 
> > nuqneH is labeled as a greeting.  You very likely could 
> here it spoken 
> > when
> > people meet.  But it is not "hello".
> 
> Just to fill in on the evolution of human greetings, "hello" 
> was not something 
> you said to someone when you walked up to them until AFTER 
> the telephone was 
> invented. The technology changed the way we used the word.
> 
> Before the telephone, "hello" was something you yelled at 
> someone across the 
> field in order to get their attention: "Helloooooooooo!" With 
> the telephone, 
> people used the word because they knew they were talking to 
> someone a long way 
> away.
> 
> Eventually, the telephone dissolved the difference between 
> people greeting 
> across a substantial distance and people simply greeting.
> 
> Meanwhile, it has now become so obligatory that good Klingon 
> behavior is taken 
> by many humans as rude, simply because the humans make stupid 
> presumptions 
> about Klingon intent.
> 
> Humans have a saying: "Actions speak louder than words." 
> Meanwhile, they don't 
> live by it. If a person you've been talking to gets up and 
> walks away, that 
> action clearly speaks loudly. The person is done with the 
> conversation and they 
> are ready to go somewhere else now. Is that enough for a human?
> 
> Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
> 
> The human expects you to SAY something first. You have to 
> politely wish them 
> well (whether you actually care about them or not) and 
> announce the end of the 
> conversation with a "Good bye" or maybe even a hand-shake 
> (terribly unclean 
> habit - a great vector for disease, if you ask me) before you 
> get permission to 
> leave without offending the stupid human.
> 
> Similarly, you can't just walk up to a human (your actions 
> indicating that you 
> want to talk to them) and just talk. You have to politely 
> check out whether or 
> not the other person welcomes you into conversation. You 
> wouldn't want to 
> INTERRUPT their precious revery. They might be thinking of 
> something important 
> and if you distract them at the wrong time, they might never 
> find their way 
> back to that precious, fragile thought.
> 
> So, at a polite distance, you say, "Hello?" Note that an 
> interrogative tone is 
> favored, even though this is a greeting and not a question. 
> That's another 
> stupid human convention.
> 
> So, then you wait for them to say the same word back to you. 
> It's less like 
> actual communication than like the protocol negotiations 
> between two modems 
> when they are connecting. The two "hello"s don't actually convey any 
> information except that they announce the first person's 
> interest in speaking 
> and the second person's willingness to join the first person 
> in conversation.
> 
> Humans similarly prefer to begin conversation indirectly, 
> commenting on 
> standard, useless drivel about the weather, wishes for the 
> well-being of the 
> other person or whatever in order to set the mood of 
> comradery before actually 
> getting around to casually bringing up the original topic 
> that brought the 
> first person to approach the second person.
> 
> Klingons kill for less than this. A Klingon will assume that 
> if you don't have 
> something to say and you are engaging them, you must be 
> distracting them while 
> someone else sneaks up from behind to kill that Klingon. It 
> then becomes 
> justifiable self-defense to kill the decoy in order to clear 
> your attention to 
> scan around, looking for the assassin in wait.
> 
> Often, when this happens between Klingons and humans, the 
> Klingon is surprised 
> to discover that there is no second person in wait. At such 
> times, it is often 
> appropriate for the Klingon to utter the human word, "Oops" 
> followed by the 
> phrase, "My mistake." If there are other Klingons around, 
> {HIvqa' veqlargh!} 
> will do (usually followed by laughter all around).
> ..
> > Many humans label it a greeting.  Really it is just 
> > straightforwardness.
> > 
> > Don't get me wrong; we can converse, we can chat.  Just 
> start talking;
> > without starting with "hello".
> > 
> > Look up the origins of "hello".
> > To get someone's attention:  "Hello, anybody in there?"
> .. 
> > So if you say "Hello" to my face I take it as an insult; "Hello, is 
> > anybody
> > in there?"
> 
> Well put. Actually, it is often interpreted as, "Hello, look 
> over here, not at 
> the guy with a weapon sneaking from behind that tree to 
> behind that bush." Just 
> look at human movies. Humans do that sort of thing all the 
> time and consider 
> themselves clever for it. You just can't trust them.
>  
> > On the tape (I'm guessing PK) the human customer enters a 
> store.  The
> merchant 
> > says /nuqneH/.  This can be viewed as a 'greeting'; but really the 
> > merchant
> > is simply asking "What do you want", because after all, 
> there is a variety of 
> > merchandise available in his store.  He doesn't know which 
> item you what, so 
> > he's asking.
> 
> bIQIj'eghbe'chugh vaj bIHegh!
>  
> > DloraH, BG
> 
> Will
> 
>