[tlhIngan Hol] Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor

[kechpaja]

On Sat, Dec 02, 2017 at 08:42:46PM -0500, nIqolay Q wrote:
> Strictly speaking, {ghevI'} just refers to gagh sauce and not condiments in
> general, though the metaphor probably works fine even if a specific
> condiment is named, so it's not a big deal.

That's what I was going for. I don't think there's a word for condiments
in general, and since {qagh} is so central to Klingon cuisine, I figured
that {ghevI'} would probably be reasonably likely to show up in this
sort of proverb-ish saying. 
> 
> Your translation seems fine in terms of getting the meaning across: "When
> one fails, the event makes success delicious, it's like gagh sauce." What
> sort of stylistic qualities are you going for? Do you want something
> concise? Something that's similar to the structure of the original?
> Something that avoids {-ghach}?

Given how Klingon seems to work, I've been trying to avoid both {-ghach}
and {-bogh} unless I decide that I really need them, since so many
things (especially proverbs of this sort) that in English use
nominalized verbs and relative clauses tend to skip them in Klingon. I'm
also trying to work around English-style phrasings such as "give
something a flavor". But I guess these aren't absolute necessities as
long as the resulting sentence is grammatical. Ideally, the resulting 
phrase would be fairly short, or at least not long enough that it feels 
like an explanation rather than a pithy remark that fits in a clause or 
two. 

I realize after thinking about this again that you can get something
fairly short that matches the English more closely: 

Qapla' 'eymoHbogh ghevI' 'oH lujlu'ghach'e'.

Or maybe this:

Qapla' 'eymoHbogh ghevI' bIH Qaghmey'e'.

I may end up going with the last one; {Qagh} is about as close as
Klingon has to a non-{-ghach} noun for "failure". 

 - SapIr

> 
> On Sat, Dec 2, 2017 at 6:41 PM, kechpaja <kechpaja at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> > The above quote, unless I'm mistaken, can be attributed to the late
> > Truman Capote. However, it sounds extremely Klingon, and I figured I'd
> > try and translate it. At the moment, I have this:
> >
> > lujlu'DI' Qapla' 'eymoH wanI', ghevI' rur.
> >
> > I thought about including something like {'ej SIbIHa' Qaplu'DI'} before
> > the noun {Qapla'}, but it felt like the resulting phrase would be too
> > long, and the meaning should be clear without the additional words.
> >
> > What do you all think?
> >
> >  - SapIr
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