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

[Steven Boozer]

Voragh:
>> HoSDo' energy being

De'vID:
> I thought this word is always plural?

I'm not sure how {HoSDo'} word is used.  You're right that it's glossed "energy beings" in the plural in both sides of the TKD glossary, but it has never been used in a sentence or explained by Okrand AFAIK.  Is it one of those inherently plural, grammatically singular nouns (perhaps with a completely different, but as yet unknown singular form) like {mang/negh} "soldier(s)"?  Could it be a mass noun?  (Perhaps it's hard to tell exactly how many such beings are actually present unless you have the proper equipment to count individual energy signatures.)  Or did Maltz say something ambiguous like, "We call energy beings {HoSDo'}"?

Okrand probably included it in the glossary because energy beings are fairly common in Trek:  e.g. Thassians (TOS "Charlie X"), Gothosians (TOS "The Squire of Gothos"), Organians (TOS "Errand of Mercy"), the Companion cloud-creature (TOS "Metamorphosis"), the Beta XII-A "hate-feeding" creature, and the Q Continuum (TNG passim). Might the Medusans (TOS "Is There In Truth No Beauty?") and the group of 10 noncorporeal Zetarians (TOS "The Lights of Zetar", also be considered energy beings?), Ian Andrew Troi (TNG "The Child"), Koinonians (TNG "The Bonding"), the Zalkonian "John Doe" (TNG "Transfigurations"), etc.

"For the record, how do we describe him?  Pure mentality?  Force of intellect? Embodied energy?  Superbeing?  He must be classified, sir." 
(Spock, TOS "The Squire of Gothos")


--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons