[Tlhingan-hol] The sleeping dog

[Alan Anderson]

On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 9:11 AM, Rohan Fenwick <qeslagh at hotmail.com> wrote:
> ghItlhpu' qunnoQ, jatlh:
>> {ngugh,ghab tun gho tut,HaDIbaH,vIchuH 'ej toD'egh} then i threw the
>> sausage
>> at the dog and i saved myself.
>
> jang De'vID, jatlh:
>> I think once you have established {ghab tun gho tut}, you can refer to
>> it later in that context as simply {tut} if it is unambiguous. But
>> that's a matter of style.
>
> Agreed, though stylistically I'd have referred to it rather as {Ha'DIbaH}
> from there on out. In this context the fact that it's a chunk of meat is
> probably more important to the narrative than the fact that it's columnar in
> shape.

He's using {Ha'DIbaH} to refer to the dog. Using it for the
distraction/projectile too would be confusing.

It's an interesting exercise to describe things for which we don't
have specific vocabulary, but the details of the meat are unimportant
to the story. Overdoing the description can be distracting. I'd have
left it at {ghab tun}. Actually, if I were talking about a sausage,
I'd have called it {Daghtuj} from the start.

-- ghunchu'wI'