tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 21 14:33:45 2002
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Re: "How fast will it go?"
Voragh:
> >'aqroS} "top (interior)" can also mean "maximum"; cf. the English idiom
> >"top speed". From the Bird of Prey poster:
> >
> > 'aqroS qughDo: pIvlob Hut vI' vagh
> > Maximum Cruising Speed - Warp 9.5
> >
> > jabbI'ID pup: Qapchu'meH 'aqroS chuq: cha' vI' chorgh loghqammey
> > High Resolution - Maximum Effective Range - 3.5 Light Years
> >
> >FYI, in the BoP poster {rav} "floor" seems to be used for "minimum":
> >
> > Hung buv rav: patlh Hut
> > classified level 9 and above
> > ["security classification 'floor': level nine"]
ter'eS:
>Anyone want to speculate on why {'aqroS} and {rav} seem to
>behave oppositely? To be consistent with practically every other
>example of "quantity" nouns, the last example should be {rav Hung buv}.
Well, off the top of my head...
1. It's a typo. There are a couple of others on the poster, most
glaringly {tlh Ingan} in the title itself.
2. Perhaps it's a matter of punctuation:
Hung buv, rav: patlh Hut
"security classification, minimum: level 9
Hung buv (rav): patlh Hut
"security classification (minimum): level 9
3. Maybe it's not the same pattern. Notice the English gloss is not
"minimum security classification/level" but "classified level 9 and
above". Instead of a bare noun-noun phrase seen in {'aqroS qughDo), this
could be a possessive phrase: {Hung buv rav} "security classification's
minimum [level]".
4. This could be jargon or an idiom used by security operatives. (If
you've ever spent any time around real intelligence types, you know what I
mean. They revel in obfuscation.)
The entries on the poster are not sentences, after all, but only
explanatory labels (or titles, if you prefer) to identify particular points
on the drawing. We shouldn't expect the notes and jargon on an engineer's
blueprint to follow standard (literary) syntax seen in Klingon prose.
--
Voragh "All the meaning is in the context."
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons (Ilya Kabakov, Russian artist)