[tlhIngan Hol] What does {Du' naH} mean exactly ?

[De'vID]

On Thu, 20 Jun 2019 at 13:37, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun at gmail.com> wrote:

> SapIr:
> > I realize I'm jumping in late and may be missing earlier context, but in
> > this particular instance I suspect you're thinking of a different
> > meaning of "sterilize". The Klingon word {Say'qu'moH} presumably does
> > *not* mean "to render incapable of reproduction"
>
> This meaning of "sterilize", never came to my mind.
>
> My confusion with {Say'moH} being given as "sterilize", instead of
> "make very clean", had to do with the fact, that in order to make lets
> say the cat very clean, you give it a good bath. But in order to
> sterilize it, you need after the bath, to apply on it alcohol, iodine
> solution etc.
>

Some of the glosses given to us are just "convenience" definitions so that
ideas which may be expressed as something other than a simple word in
Klingon (e.g., a verb with suffixes, or a sentence) can be looked up more
easily. It's like {jeS 'e' Sap} for "sign up (for an event)" or {mebpa'mey}
for "hotels".

Considering that {Say'qu'moH} was glossed as "sterilize" among other
medical/scientific terms such as {Hergh QaywI'}, {tuj muvwI'}, {'uD'a'},
{'uD Haqtaj}, and {woj}, I'm fairly confident that it just means that a
Klingon doctor calling to sterilise an operating table or room would say
{Say'qu'moH} "make (the table or room) *very* clean" and be understood,
because *in that context* that's what making very clean would mean.

It doesn't mean that if your dirty cat tracked mud all over my
Bird-Of-Prey, and I tell you to {vIghro'lIj Say'qu'moH jay'}, that I expect
you to apply alcohol and iodine to it.

-- 
De'vID
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.kli.org/pipermail/tlhingan-hol-kli.org/attachments/20190620/e530545a/attachment.htm>