[Tlhingan-hol] paq'batlh: TO SPEAK TO SOMEONE OF SOMETHING

[David Trimboli]

On 11/28/2011 1:51 PM, ghunchu'wI' 'utlh wrote:
>
> 2011/11/26 Agnieszka Solska<agnpau1 at hotmail.com>:
>>
>> How do you make of the following line?
>>
>>     Don't speak to me of honor
>>     quv HIja'chuqQo'
>>     (pp 156-157)
>
> In The Klingon Dictionary, {ja'chuq} is explicitly analyzed as "tell
> each other". Marc Okrand once suggested that he would say more about
> it on the MSN forum, but I don't think he got around to it before the
> forum vanished.
>
> My first (and extremely strong) reaction is to say the sentence is not
> grammatically correct. Had I seen it in the draft of the text, I would
> have had the same reaction.

It hurts my brain. {-chuq} means the object is "each other," but the 
prefix means the object is "me," and the actual object is "honor." Ugh.

The only reason such an icky sentence appears is because {ja'chuq} is 
translated in the dictionary as "discuss." If that word weren't used, we 
wouldn't be having this trouble. It's all based on a poorly chosen 
English translation.

Finding a better translation would require the context around the 
sentence, but I don't have the book.

-- 
SuStel
http://www.trimboli.name/