tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jun 23 07:16:46 2005
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: Klingon WOTD: taQ (verb)
>This is the Klingon Word Of The Day for Thursday, June 23, 2005.
>
>Category: Stative Verbs
>
>Klingon word: taQ
>Part of Speech: verb
>Definition: be weird
Okrand on the danger of mispronouncing /H/ as /Q/:
There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, of a non-Klingon actor
who attempted to play the lead in the original Klingon version
of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" but was shouted off the stage when he
began the famous soliloquy by saying, {taQ pagh taQbe'} ("To be
weird or not to be weird"), rather than the correct {taH pagh
taHbe'} ("To be or not to be"; literally, "[one] continues or
[one] does not continue"). (KGT 194)
Another example from the same page:
{taH tlhIngan wo'} "The Klingon empire survives."
{taQ tlhIngan wo'} "The Klingon empire is weird."
Cp. {jum} "be odd", {Huj} "be strange}, {le'} "be special, be exceptional"
and {motlhbe'} "be unusual".
Cf. also the idiom {cha'maH cha' joQDu'} "twenty-two ribs" used to indicate
something is missing or not quite right, especially when it is difficult or
impossible to explain the problem. (Klingons have 23 ribs.)
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons