[Tlhingan-hol] Klingon Word of the Day: QuQ

[Steven Boozer]

There’s a similar amusing sequence in TKD (p.49) with the placement of the V2 suffix {–vIp} “afraid” and Rover suffixes:

choHoHvIp           You are afraid to kill me.

choHoHvIpbe'        You are not afraid to kill me.

choHoHbe'vIp        You are afraid to not kill me.

nuqIpvIp            They are afraid to hit us.

HIHoHvIpQo'         Don't be afraid to kill me!

pIHoHvIpbe'qu'      We are NOT afraid to kill you.

pIHoHvIpqu'be'      We are not AFRAID to kill you.

pIHoHqu'vIpbe'      We are not afraid to KILL you.

And this joke is not NEARLY as funny in English...

From: lojmIttI'wI'nuv [mailto:lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2016 12:58 PM

There’s a joke pointing out the different meanings of “only” in English, and the way that word placement is so flexible and alters meaning.  Start with the sentence:

I hit the baby in the head.

Now, add the word “only” in each location it could be placed. There are a couple of redundant meanings, but most of them are unique:

Only I hit the baby in the head. (Nobody did it but me.)

I only hit the baby in the head. (Don’t make a fuss over it. It’s not that big of a deal.)

I hit only the baby in the head. (I didn’t hit anybody else in the head.)

I hit the only baby in the head. (There wasn’t more than one baby.)

I hit the baby only in the head. (I didn’t hit the baby anywhere else.)

I hit the baby in only the head. (This is the strange one, hard to parse. Maybe I hit it out everywhere else?)

I hit the baby in the only head. (Nothing in the room had a head, except the baby, and it only had one of them.)

I hit the baby in the head only. (I didn’t hit the baby anywhere else.)

So, don’t feel too bad about not completely understanding “only” as a person for whom English is not a primary language.

This joke is not NEARLY as funny in Klingon...

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