tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Nov 13 18:20:16 2009
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Re: Yet another newbie!
2009/11/13 Steven Boozer <[email protected]>:
> Tracy:
>>Since -Hom isn't merely "small", but "minor", perhaps "fine print"
>>could be handled as mu'HomHey "apparently minor words".
>
> Fine print isn't necessarily {-Hom} "minor". In fact, it's often more important than the regular print! That's the very reason people use fine print, after all.
>
Hence the -Hey ...
> *{mu'mey mach[qu']} "[very] small words" might work. (People always forget about {mach} "be small", preferring {-Hom} instead.)
>
... but fine print is necessarily _small_, either. The English
expression doesn't really derive its meaning from the combined
meanings of "fine" and "print"; it's more of an idiom for something
that could easily be overlooked but shouldn't be. The French
equivalent of "read the fine print" is "lisez toutes les clauses" -
nothing about size, just a straight-up warning to read everything. I
think the choice of translation might come down to whether you want to
translate more literally and let the reader figure out that small
print can conceal hidden conditions, or less literally and lose the
connection with the real-world use of small print.
Since verbs used adjectivally can't take suffixes other than -qu,
maybe another way to go is
ramlaw'bogh mu'
"words which seem to be unimportant."