[tlhIngan Hol] Expressing "as if nothing happened"

[Steven Boozer]

Or you could use {neH} which doesn’t require {‘e’} as its object:  { ‘e’ vIlIj DaneH'a'? }

Or you could replace the first {‘e’} with a noun:  { chomaghta'  ‘ej ta’lIj / ta’vam vIlIj ‘e’ DapIH'a'? }  I also like that the verb suffix {-ta’} is echoed by the noun {ta’}.

--Voragh

From: nIqolay Q
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2019 10:47 AM

You can probably lose one of the {'e'}s. {chomaghta'. vIlIj 'e' DapIH'a'...} It's not unheard of to have an unstated third-person object that refers to the situation in general. "You betrayed me. Do you expect me to forget it?" (Don't forget the {-'a'} if you're writing a question.)

You might also find a way to use {ghet} "pretend" to get across the notion of "behave as if something were true". {chomaghta'. qaS pagh 'e' vIghet DaneH'a'?} "You betrayed me. Do you want me to pretend nothing happened?" (This also removes an {'e'} by using the one verb that doesn't take it.)

There's also the time-honored tradition of appealing to Klingon cultural mores as a reason to rephrase it entirely and remove the question. {chomaghta'. qaS pagh 'e' vIghetQo'.} "You betrayed me. I won't pretend that nothing happened."

There's a line {naDev qaS wanI' ramqu'} from Star Trek III and TKD, translated as "There's nothing happening here" but literally "Very insignificant events happen here." So perhaps a better idiom for "nothing happened" is something like {ramqu' wanI'}. {chomaghta'. ramqu' wanI' 'e' vIghet DaneH'a'?} "You betrayed me. Do you want me to pretend the event was utterly insignificant?"

Also, stringing together two {'e'}s is probably fine as long as the sentences aren't very complicated otherwise. (It'd probably still be grammatical even if the sentences were complicated, but then it'd be hard to read.) I can't recall any instances in canon, though.

On Fri, Feb 15, 2019 at 10:02 AM mayqel qunenoS <mihkoun at gmail.com<mailto:mihkoun at gmail.com>> wrote:
If you wanted to say "you've betrayed me, and you expect me to behave
as if nothing happened ?", how would you say it ?

The best option I can think of, is perhaps something like {chomaghta';
'e' vIlIj, 'e' DapIH, jIvangtaHvIS ?}

But I can't say, that I like stringing together two {'e'}s.

Does someone have a better idea ?

~mayqel *I love maltz* qunen'oS

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