[Tlhingan-hol] puS

[lojmIt tI'wI' nuv 'utlh]

Consider that the threshold in Klingon between {law’} and {puS} can be between several and many, instead of your arbitrary choice to declare the proper threshold to be between a few and several.

After all, Klingons consider yellow to be a color associated with blue and green (a really light shade of green) instead of red and orange (a really light shade of orange). It’s arbitrary where these thresholds sit that mark a difference between vaguely differentiated descriptions. Accept the definition instead of bending it to your arbitrary choice.

When I read the definition, I see {puS} = “not a lot” and {law’} = “a lot”.

All of this is vague, when most of the time the MAIN thing we are marking here is that {law’} is more than {puS}. Also that {law’} is noteworthy because it is a lot, and {puS} is noteworthy because it is not all that many. If the number is not noteworthy… if it were merely the usual, expected number of something, then we probably wouldn’t use either word.

When one might expect X under typical conditions, but one observes a number clearly less than X, the word {puS} comes to mind. When one encounters noticeably more than X, then the word {law’} comes to mind. There is no single number X to measure this word choice by. If there were, then it would be in the definition.

lojmIt tI’wI’ nuv ‘utlh
Door Repair Guy, Retired Honorably



On Jun 27, 2014, at 11:02 PM, Brad Wilson <bmacliam at aol.com> wrote:

> The definition for {puS} in TKD has always bothered me - be few, be several, be a handful.
> To me a handful is a few, but several is more than that. I wouldn't put these together in meaning.
> I usually just ignore the "several" entry and use {law'} instead for several/many.
> How do others reconcile this?
> 
> gheyIl
> _______________________________________________
> Tlhingan-hol mailing list
> Tlhingan-hol at kli.org
> http://mail.kli.org/mailman/listinfo/tlhingan-hol

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.kli.org/pipermail/tlhingan-hol/attachments/20140628/d4979cc5/attachment.html>