[83918] in tlhIngan-Hol
RE: Topic (was: Specifying distance traveled)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Trimboli)
Thu Jan 10 10:33:33 2008
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:31:50 -0700
From: David Trimboli <david@trimboli.name>
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
> Meanwhile NOBODY has suggested anything that everybody else accepts. I
> don't think there is any other area of Klingon grammar that is quite
> this ineffective in terms of offering people a way to say something
> that everyone else can agree is correctly stated.
Yeah, I basically said this before. But whereas I simply accept that we
don't all agree, you seem to want to force some kind of consensus. This
will never happen. This is a hobby, not a dictatorship, and not a
democracy.
> I think my use of {-'e'} is correct. You think your use of {-'e'} is
> correct. Pretty much everybody seems to think they know how it should
> be used, but when any of us use it, somebody jumps in and an argument
> ensues. Rarely does anybody finally agree, beyond objectors giving up
> on answering yet another insistence that a particular use really is
> justifiable.
Untrue. When one of us uses a controversial construction in a sentence
in a way that everyone else can figure out, even if they don't agree
with it, they usually just get on with things. IF, that is, the text was
simply a conversation in Klingon. Making claims about the language in
English, as we're doing here, is a whole 'nother ballgame.
If you were simply concerned about speaking (i.e. writing) in Klingon
and being constantly criticized for your grammar, I'd say you have
nothing to worry about. Just get on with it, and you'll find objections
only when someone can't understand you. That doesn't seem to be your
concern. You want a consensus; you want the group to decide on the RIGHT
rules, or at least the rules that are right on this list. It ain't never
gonna happen. That's just the way this list works.
> What I'd like is if you, or anyone else who thinks they really
> understand what Okrand was after, and how Okrand's canon use of it
> matches that understanding, could show us how we can confidently use
> it to express things in a way that any reasonable Klingon speaker
> (assuming that there are any) can agree is correct usage. Success in
> that mission would serve this community much more than just more
> objections to any particular usage.
I presented my argument extensively, and you rejected it. I have no
problem with that. You presented your argument, and I rejected that. You
have a problem with that. Not because you want YOUR argument to win, but
because you want ONE argument to win. But there's no authority to
declare a winner. If everybody agrees on something here, it's a happy,
but very rare, day. Most of the time we don't agree, and it's always
been that way.
> I'd like it if someone tried to do this as a positive contribution to
> our group understanding of the issue, rather than as a typically
> bombastic critique, trying to stylishly prove that any dissenting
> opinions are held by obvious idiots. I doubt there are any idiots
> here, though we often treat each other as if we were.
If this is aimed at me, I object wholeheartedly. I have belittled
nobody. Even if it isn't aimed at me, I still disagree. Yes, there's
plenty of "That's not how it works," but that's a far cry from "That's
not how it works, you moron." I believe you are seeing insult where
there is none. I invite you to demonstrate any instances in which this
is not true.
SuStel
Stardate 8026.4
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