[Tlhingan-hol] Klingon Word of the Day: Dol

[De'vID]

De'vID:
>> My opinion based on the example is "no".  I think the example
>> clarifies the meaning of {Dol}:
>>
>>   wa' Dol nIvDaq matay'DI' maQap
>>   We succeed together in a greater whole. (TKW p.209)

loghaD:
> That example is from TKW, though, which was published in 1996, years after the second edition of TKD (updated edition from 1992, but I think Dol was already in the old edition from 1985), where <Dol> was translated simply as "entity".
>
> What Lieven seems to be suggesting is that Marc intended it to mean "entity" as in "the crystalline entity" or "some super-powerful alien entity", but that when writing TKW he looked up "entirety", mistook "entity" for "entirety" and then published it.

I understand what he's suggesting.  It's the step where MO needed a
word for "whole" in the phrase "a greater whole" and hypothetically
proceeded to look up "entirety" that I don't believe.  The phrase "a
greater whole" does not mean "a greater entirety", but it does mean "a
greater entity".

That doesn't necessarily mean that that was the original intended
meaning of the word.  Perhaps MO saw that he had an entry for "entity"
which hadn't been used yet, and decided to "repurpose" or "redefine"
the word to a new meaning.

loghaD:
> Personally, I'm not really leaning either way on this one. The look-up mistake theory is plausible enough, but I think it's equally plausible that he meant "whole" all along; it's a sensible interpretation of "entity".

Who knows what he was thinking at the time.  He's probably forgotten
himself, by this point.

-- 
De'vID