[Tlhingan-hol] Do you, personally, accept non-Okrandian Klingon?

[Robyn Stewart]

I have to admit that what I do and what I say here are at odds a little. On one hand if Okrand didn't write it down, it's not a word, the end. (I give the man opportunity to reconsider Whst he just says, so he doesn't have to be completely enigmatic in person),

On the other hand I USE Klingon every day. I keep to-do lists and grocery lists in Klingon. I tweet and Facebook and Skype in Klingon. I live in a world of objects named by Terrans, so my Klingon is rife with weird usages and anglicisms. When Marc extended ngat to herbed, granulated cartilage, I extended it further. I don't know whether any of you would know what's in the canister labelled <ray' tIr Hurgh ngat> in pIqaD, but I reach for it whenever I make pizza. It's one thing to say, <wejHu' maSkypetaHvIS> but then I write down 1600 SI'qIyp chu', in pIqaD, and then we spend ten minutes talking about raccoon baculumDu' (baculiDu'?) and then I start to write "hashtag" in Klingon phonetics and feel like I discovered not invented the word HaStaper. I'm not a great code switcher, so it took me three tries to pronounce "dog" in English while speaking Klingon, "Dogh, Dag, dog" (yeah the second is correct for dog in Ohio and thereabouts, but that's not how I pronounce that vowel in English. I think I somehow shut off English pronunciations while focusing on Klingon. I will soon have to remember to code switch between canon and casual Klingon, the way I have to remember not to use Chinook words (the local trade jargon did not entirely disappear in my area when English squeezed out all the other languages, and a few words remain in regional speech today) when speaking to people from the other side of the Great Divide. 

So I don't ACCEPT neogisms, the way your English teacher didn't accept "funner" in your "what I did this summer" essay, but I use them anyway, and occasionally, e.g. in the case of HaStaper or 'anan naH, say "oh come on! That must be the word."

- Qov