[Tlhingan-hol] The Story of {'I'}

[SuStel]

On 12/15/2014 12:55 PM, lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com wrote:

> At the next qep’a’, we decided that it was a good story to tell Marc
> Okrand. He loves a good joke. We told him and he laughed and we
> laughed and then we were done laughing and it got quiet, and he
> smiled, and he said, “Of course, you know that there really IS a
> Klingon word for ‘armpit’, right?”
>
> Eyebrows went up around the room. Everyone leaned in. People grabbed
> their pens and pads or their Palm Pilots and styluses. When he felt
> that he truly had everyone’s devout attention, he uttered, “{‘I’}”

I remember the revelation slightly differently. Mark Shoulson was 
telling Marc Okrand the story of {'I'}, with a majority of the attendees 
sitting on the floor in a circle around Marc. At the end of the story 
Marc was a little confused, not quite having followed all of it. He 
asked, almost as an aside, "What IS the word for 'armpit'?" thinking 
he'd forgotten and this would clear up his confusion.

Now, this was the first qep'a' that Marc attended in person, and he was 
still a little shy about it. We were all warned to be careful and not to 
pester Marc for words or other answers to questions about the language, 
so we'd all been bottling up these things. So when he asked what the 
word for armpit really was, we all burst out, "Yes, what IS the word for 
'armpit'?" We were all grinning, only half-serious, but thinking maybe 
we'd finally get a word out of him, so we all got quiet and waited for 
his answer.

He realized what was going on and, with a completely straight face, said 
simply, "{'I'}"

Pandemonium, as lojmIt tI'wI' nuv rightly called it, ensued.

When KLINGON FOR THE GALACTIC TRAVELER was published, the very first 
thing I did when I got my copy was look up {'I'} in the word list, and I 
was thrilled to see it there.

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