tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Sep 21 07:55:33 2006
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Re: Advice for tourists?
Voragh:
>This paragraph caught my eye from an article by Joel Mowbray:
>
> Fights can erupt anytime, anywhere. Israelis yell at strangers,
> neighbors, and friends. Fighting aside, normal conversation is
> often terse, even brusque. Perhaps owing to their spoken language
> - Hebrew, I've been told, has one-fifth the working vocabulary of
> English - Israelis are blunt, to put it nicely. Even tourists are
> not immune. At the hotel, for example, the chef responded to my
> request for extra cheese on my omelette by barking that there was
> already enough.
>
>http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=24491
ghunchu'wI':
>ghuy'cha', Voragh! qatlh 'ay'vetlh'e' DabuSnIS? ghItlh naQ
>vIlaDta'DI' vIt vISov. Dochqu' Israel nganpu' 'e' Delbe'. boQchuq
>'e' Del.
I quite agree. But both of Mowbray's points are accurate - Israeli's do
indeed support each other in times of crisis (because it's a very small
country Israelis tend to view each other as *mishpakhah* "family") and at
the same time they can indeed be brusque. This is not a
contradiction. After all, if you can't be blunt and honest with your
family, with whom can you be? Frankly, I quite enjoy socializing with
Israelis and visiting the country, which I've done several times.
My point was that if you replace "Israelis" with "Klingons" in this
paragraph, you could be describing life on Kronos. Even the bit about the
limited vocabulary is relevant: Lacking the enormous number of fine
distinctions and synonyms of English (or Federation Standard), one is
forced to say exactly what you mean without resorting to polite
euphemism. Like Klingons, Israelis consider speaking their mind - in
Israeli slang "talking *dughri*" (i.e. "straight" via Arabic) - a Good
Thing and many have no time for "bourgeois manners".
We know that the Vulcans will locate their consulate in Sausalito, but the
Klingons should consider putting theirs in Tel Aviv. They would feel less
culture shock when dealing with the locals. <g>
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons