[tlhIngan Hol] Clarification on SIch

[Will Martin]

I honestly think you have this backwards.

A compass needle reaches for the North Pole, but it never reaches it. If I reach for a book, my hand is reaching TOWARD it, but until it reaches the book, it doesn’t touch it. 

When I make my annual trip to AirVenture to see airplanes, the goal is to reach Oshkosh (in the non{SIch} sense of the word). I’ll arrive “there" {paw} and no longer be "here".

When I reach for a book, I’m still “here”. It’s just my hand that is headed over to the book. Even when I reach the book, I’m still here. The whole of me is not at the book; just the part needed to grasp the book and bring it to where I am.

Reaching a goal can become squishy, because sometimes we reach physical goals, like Oshkosh, and sometimes we reach for abstract goals, like a new high score at Sudoku on my iPad. If I can still be here while I reach the goal, I suspect I can use {SIch}, but if the goal requires the whole of me to be within the named area, I think I need to use {paw}.

The difference between these two verbs is that one involves moving the whole of you to the goal {paw}, while the other involves extending part of you to touch the goal {SIch}.

charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan

rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.

> 
> ...How would you translate these lines?
> 
> {paq vISIch 'e' vInID} "I extended (my arm) to try to grasp the book", "I tried to grasp the book (by extending my arm, etc.)" (i.e., "I reached for the book")
> {SIch 'e' nID} "He extends (his arm) to try to grasp something", "I tried to grasp something (by extending his arm, etc.)" (i.e., "He reaches for the book")
> {paqvetlh DaSIchlaH'a'} "Are you able to extend yourself to touch that book?" (i.e., "Can you reach that book?")
> 
> This helps clear things up. So, for you, "reach for" includes the concept of a failed attempt? 
> 
> For me "reach for" means a successful "reach and grasp/touch", while "reach" on it's own is just the extending part. "Reach for those crisps and hand them to me, won't you dear" was the sort of thing I often hear in my childhood when someone wanted me to pick up something and give it to them. "I tried to reach for the book", "He tried to reach for the book", "Can you reach for the book?" is how they come out in my dialect, hence the confusion. 
> 
> Thanks for helping me clarify this, and learn more about English in the process :D
> 
> qurgh
> 
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