[Tlhingan-hol] Klingon Word of the Day: yoymoHwI'

[André Müller]

Hmm... either you are assuming that Klingon does not allow for metaphoric
expressions, while English does, or you don't like the thought that a word
might have several meanings.

Either way, I don't see any problem with this word. First, in the Star Trek
universe, an "inverter" could be anything, not just a device that converts
electric polarity. I'm not going to check Memory Alpha for different
instances of inverters, but I'm sure there are devices that switch other
subatomic things around or changes their behavior, perhaps spin, quark
flavor, the direction of certain currents/fluxes. Secondly, as our
languages (English, German, Chinese, Klingon, you name it) are all older
than these techniques, most of the terminology will in fact be metaphoric
or at least won't literally describe what happens. Even the words 'to
write' and 'to read' in German etymologically come from 'to carve' and 'to
collect'. Whatever an inverter inverts in Klingon, the underlying metaphor
is that of turning something upside down. The origin of that might be a
schematic or something like that, that was used to visualize the actual
ideas. Something was imagined as "up" and its opposite as "down". Switching
those two would be an inversion. And this is also applicable for your
inverters, given the appropriate metaphors.

I wouldn't even see this as a sloppy calque of an English term, it's rather
natural for languages to apply metaphoric extensions of meanings for highly
complex processes, and some of those terms are almost self-evident, even if
they are physically inaccurate.

- André

2015-10-09 17:20 GMT+02:00 Will Martin <lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com>:

> wejpuH.
>
> The problem here, of course, is that in English, we use the word
> “inverter” to describe a device that converts Direct Current (DC)
> electricity, like from a battery or solar panel, into Alternating Current
> (AC), like from a wall socket in an average home. It doesn’t actually turn
> anything upside down. It uses power transistors, which are basically fast,
> electronic switches to switch between one polarity and another polarity. We
> probably should have called them “polarity reversers” and not “inverters”.
>
> In other words, you have two wires. One is positive. One is negative.
> “Square wave” inverters switch which wire is which 120 times a second for
> 60 cycle AC current. Or modified sine wave inverters typically switch 480
> times a second between off, 55 volts positive, 110 volts positive, 55 volts
> positive, off, 55 volts negative, 110 volts negative, 55 volts negative,
> and off.
>
> Or “True Sine Wave” inverters are actually modified sine wave inverters
> placed in line with large-mass 1:1 transformers, using the magnetic inertia
> of the iron core to smooth out the steps in the stepped waves to create
> smooth sine waves of AC current.
>
> So, in English, we used the word “invert” instead of “reverse” to describe
> what we’re doing to the electrical polarity of the wires, and Okrand takes
> the term “invert” and takes the “make something upside down” interpretation
> of the term, and here we have a poorly descriptive English term for the
> task at hand that has perhaps now become a poorly descriptive Klingon term,
> unless of course, a Klingon {yoymoHwI’} is something that actually turns
> things upside down, and doesn’t have anything to do with converting DC to
> AC.
>
> Unless {yoymoH} actually has a broader scope of meaning, like “invert”,
> and while both CAN mean “cause to be upside down”, they also can refer to
> other kinds of reversals of state.
>
> [sigh]
>
> pItlh
> lojmIt tI'wI'nuv
>
>
>
> > On Oct 9, 2015, at 10:58 AM, Steven Boozer <sboozer at uchicago.edu> wrote:
> >
> >> Klingon Word of the Day for Friday, October 09, 2015
> >>
> >> Klingon word: yoymoHwI'
> >> Part of speech: noun
> >> Definition: inverter
> >> Source:
> >
> > Bill Willmerdinger, BabelCon 2 [4/07/1997]:
> >
> >  "I had needed some technobable once and created 'inverter' ...
> >   which Marc [Okrand] said was perfect."
> >
> > SEE ALSO:
> > yoy           be upside down (v)
> > chong         be vertical (v)
> > taH           be at a negative angle (v)
> > lol           be in an attitude (v)
> >
> >
> > --
> > Voragh
> > Ca'Non Master of the Klingons
> >
> >
> >
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