[tlhIngan Hol] Clarification on SIch

De'vID de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com
Wed Apr 10 06:51:58 PDT 2019


On Wed, 10 Apr 2019 at 14:44, Will Martin <willmartin2 at mac.com> wrote:

> I honestly think you have this backwards.
>

There's more than one dialect of English. There's no requirement that
they're consistent. Indeed, there's a famous story about a misunderstanding
due to speakers of different dialects of English agreeing to "table" an
item during a meeting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_words_having_different_meanings_in_American_and_British_English_(M%E2%80%93Z)


> 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}.
>

To "reach a goal" is an idiom based on a metaphor: treating a desired
accomplishment as if it were a physical place. If you're climbing Mt.
Everest, you can {paw} at the summit. If you're learning to slam dunk a
basketball, you can {SIch} the rim. If you've made a new high score at
Sudoku on your iPad, I'm sure that's neither {paw} nor {SIch}, but {chav}.
In English, these can all be expressed using the verb "reach". In Klingon,
they are considered distinct ideas.

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}.
>

Agreed. But I think that's clear to everyone? I think the confusion is over
whether {SIch} includes the idea of successful contact, which it
(apparently) does.

-- 
De'vID
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