[94706] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Klingon Word of the Day: Qu'vatlh
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven Boozer)
Thu Sep 20 10:09:01 2012
From: Steven Boozer <sboozer@uchicago.edu>
To: "tlhingan-hol@kli.org" <tlhingan-hol@kli.org>
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 14:08:40 +0000
In-Reply-To: <F52986192E9FE346B0B7EF3D6F98E87711C62A22@EXDB3.ug.kth.se>
Errors-To: tlhingan-hol-bounces@stodi.digitalkingdom.org
Voragh:
>> AFAIK never used in canon. Does it - or any other curse
>> for that matter - appear in the {paq'batlh}?
Felix:
> petaQ is used a fair bit, as one might expect.
Thanks for checking this.
=
> It contains this footnote (which I believe was written by Sch=F6nefeld,
> not Okrand):
>
> P'takh (petaQ) is a Klingon insult, meaning something like "weirdo,"
> deriving from the verb "to be weird" (taQ), with and you (plural)
> imperative prefix (pe-). Alternative romanizations include pahtak,
> p'tak, patahk, and pahtk.
Sustel reported that footnote (p. 70f.?) back in June, to which ghunchu'wI'=
replied:
... don't put much stock in the authority of the footnotes.
(ghunchu'wI', 6/25/2012)
The supposed etymology is fairly obvious and, in fact, Kevin A. Geiselman p=
osted the same analysis sometime in the 1990's:
To call someone a {petaQ} would be calling him some sort of
weirdo or pervert.
I included Kevin's comment in my "Voragh's Notes on Klingon Cursing", which=
can still be found on the net. Sch=F6nefeld may have seen a copy of this =
document.
> Interestingly, the text contains the line <nItlhejbogh petaQmey tInuD>
> ("Look att hese p'takhs at your side"), shouted by Molor at Kahless;
> not sure if the <-mey> was intentional to add insult to, well, insult.
> [It also contains the phrase <nuqDaq ghaH petaQ'e'> ("Where is the
> p'takh [...]"), with <ghaH> rather than <'oH>.]
> =
> Molor also tell Kahless <petaQ'a' SoH>, which is translated as "You
> dirty p'takh,". So, apparently <petaQ'a'> is a thing.
It's not surprising that the pronouns is {ghaH} as the epithet refers to a =
person. I'd imagine the same is true for the epithet {Ha'DIbaH}: ?{nuqDaq=
ghaH romuluS Ha'DIbaHvetlh'e'}. If you wanted to add even more insult to =
insult, you could say {nuqDaq 'oH petaQ'e'} using the pronoun used with act=
ual animals. =
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons
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