[tlhIngan Hol] lawn mower

[Elizabeth Lawrence]

No, I would not speak of mowing someone's hair, but I would certainly speak
of trimming the lawn.  <<chIp>> is glossed as "cut, trim (hair)".  When
hair is cut or trimmed, it is shortened for aesthetic effect.  I don't know
that Klingons have the notion of mowing lawns at all, and "Giving the grass
a haircut" is certainly much more descriptive of what is happening than
"Cutting the grass" would be to people who have no tradition of mown
lawns.  In addition, I think that your evidence supports my point: we have
no evidence that Klingons have lawns, and some evidence that they don't.
Therefore, it seems less likely that they would have a specific word for
"mow" and if they did it might refer specifically to the harvesting of
grain grasses rather than lawn maintenance.  I will continue with magh
chIpwI' as the much more evocative phrase.

be''etlh

On Tue, Jul 26, 2016 at 1:17 PM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:

> You wouldn’t seriously speak of “mowing” someone’s hair, and you wouldn’t
> seriously speak of *chIp*-ping the *magh* or *magh yotlh.* We don’t know
> if Klingons have a separate word for *mow,* and in that absence the only
> correct choice is *pe’**cut.*
>
> As for Klingon lawn maintenance, I’m not so ready to compare my own
> motivations to those of Klingons. Whenever we see Klingon residences it
> seems to be in cities or on mountains. They seem to prefer stone and metal
> over foliage. A Klingon guide in *Conversational Klingon* found a power
> station to be beautiful, even though it smelled and stung the Terran’s eyes.
>
> On 7/26/2016 12:29 PM, Elizabeth Lawrence wrote:
>
> I will come down strongly on the side of <<magh chIpwI'>>  because the
> maintenance trimming we do to lawns is definitely more clearly conveyed by
> <<chIp>> and I think that "grass cutter" makes sense in any language, even
> if, like English, it is not the preferred word, whereas "Lawn cutter" might
> not make sense if it was not preferred.  Furthermore, I doubt there is a
> specific set phrase for it in Klingon, because lawn maintenance seems like
> a useless waste of time to me; it must me much moreso to a Klingon.
>
> be''etlh
>
> On Tue, Jul 26, 2016 at 11:43 AM, Felix Malmenbeck <felixm at kth.se> wrote:
>
>> Lawn mowers are also called grass cutters...
>>
>>
>> Very true, and the most common variant likely varies quite unpredictably
>> from language to language.
>>
>> In Swedish we only say "grass cutter" (gräsklippare), and saying "lawn
>> mower" (gräsmattsklippare) would sound really weird.
>> However, both Danish and Norwegian (both Bokmål and Nynorsk) apparently
>> use both "grass cutter" (gressklippar, grasklippar, græsslåmaskine) and
>> "lawn cutter" (plenklippar, plenklipper, plæneklipper).
>>
>> Considering the fact that not even the Scandinavian languages an make up
>> their mind, I doubt we'll be able to deduce the preferred Klingon
>> construction sand word-of-God/Maltz. However, both «magh pe'wI'» and «magh
>> yotlh pe'wI'» should get the idea across to any Terran Klingon-speakers (or
>> at least those comfortable with English, which is the vast majority).
>>
>> I personally kind of like «magh chIpwI'», but perhaps that's for more
>> detailed sculpting.
>> ...or treacherous barbers.
>>
>>
>> 26 juli 2016 kl. 16:14 skrev SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name>:
>>
>> Lawn mowers are also called grass cutters...
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> tlhIngan-Hol mailing list
>> tlhIngan-Hol at lists.kli.org
>> http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
>>
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> tlhIngan-Hol mailing listtlhIngan-Hol at lists.kli.orghttp://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
>
>
>
> --
> SuStelhttp://trimboli.name
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> tlhIngan-Hol mailing list
> tlhIngan-Hol at lists.kli.org
> http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.kli.org/pipermail/tlhingan-hol-kli.org/attachments/20160726/3d2067d2/attachment-0017.htm>