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

[kechpaja at comcast.net]

To add one last thing:

What would really be nice would be if there were a verb describing what a condiment (such as {ghevI’}) does to its main dish. {‘eymoH} doesn’t really cut it, since we’re talking about adding flavor rather than making the dish delicious all at once. Something like “season”. 


Sent from my iPhone

> On Dec 3, 2017, at 04:14, kechpaja <kechpaja at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
>> 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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> 
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