[tlhIngan Hol] Klingon Word of the Day: ruDelya' rop'a'

De'vID de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com
Mon Apr 10 02:37:08 PDT 2017


On 8 April 2017 at 13:07, kechpaja <kechpaja at comcast.net> wrote:
>> pIvHa'                be unhealthy (v)
>> pIv                   be healthy (v)
>
> Do we know whether these two verbs apply only to beings, or whether they
> can be used for i.e. a healthy lifestyle or healthy food?
>
> There's a part of me that wants to translate "the food is healthy" as
> {pIvmoH Soj}, since it's the people doing the eating who are going to be
> in good healthy, not the food itself ({qagh} notwithstanding).

English unfortunately conflates the two different meanings of "being
in a state of good health" and "being conducive to a state of good
health" into one word. Some pedants insist on reserving "healthy" for
the former and using "healthful" for the latter, but that battle seems
to have been lost long ago:
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/healthy-or-healthful

My instincts tell me that {pIv} means only "healthy" in the sense of
"being in a state of good heatlh" and not the other meaning, though I
can't prove it. (Marc Okrand did once write {yIpIv!} in a get-well
letter, so there's that.) For the "healthful" meaning, I'm inclined to
use {pIvmoH} as you are, or {rach}.

-- 
De'vID



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