[tlhIngan Hol] Expressing "underwear"

[Will Martin]

Seqram, brilliant as he is, should know to be more careful with his utterances. Witness {‘I’}.

If Okrand accepts {lumnaH} (a BEAUTIFUL pun), then it would be at least the second word that Seqram invented and Okrand adopted.

As if there were anyone here who didn’t know the history of {‘I’}:

Before there was much focus on sources in dictionary entries, someone asked if we had a word for “armpit”, and someone from the list insisted that we did, and that word was {‘I’}. Nobody else could remember ever seeing the word before, but that person insisted that he got the word from this list and he was positive that it was a real Klingon word. We argued about it for a week or so before ghunchu’wI’ went back into the archives and found a discussion that included a comment from Seqram about how important it is that we limit our vocabulary to canon sources, because otherwise it would be impossible for someone new to the language, who had bought all the books and seen all the movies, etc., but never knew the KLI existed to know that, independent of any of these canon sources, the KLI had agreed that {‘I’} meant “armpit”.

He was just making up an intentionally absurd example.

So, having found the source, we all knew that we needed to be careful to site sources, or we’d just get weird words tossed into the language at random. It was silly that this random utterance got preserved, its source forgotten.

At the next qep’a’, we told this story to Okrand and we all laughed, and as it got quiet after, he grinned and quietly said, “Well, of course, you know that there really is a Klingon word for ‘armpit’, right?”

We were all astonished and wide-eyed fell for it, hook, line, and sinker as he said, “The word is, {‘I’}.”

And… so, it became canon with a wave of his magic wand. We had a great laugh and got a new word. Poof.

charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan

rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.




> On Apr 24, 2019, at 8:45 AM, Brent Kesler <brent.of.all.people at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I have to share a memory.
> 
> At qep'a' vaghDIch I was talking with Seqram. KGT had just come out, and we were discussing all the puns that Okrand put into the new vocabulary. Seqram joked that when we finally learned the word for underwear, it'd turn out to be lumnaH. ("Fruit of the Loom" is a common brand of underwear in the US.)
> 
> For twenty-five years, I've been hoping Okrand would prove him right.
> 
> bI'reng
> 
> On Sun, Apr 21, 2019 at 11:16 AM mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun at gmail.com <mailto:mihkoun at gmail.com>> wrote:
> Does anyone have any ideas on how to say "underwear" ?
> 
> The only thing which comes to mind, is {qoD Sut}, but this brings to my mind clothes which one wears indoors.
> 
> ~ m. qunen'oS
> good.. good.. let Ca'Non flow through you
> 
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