[tlhIngan Hol] Expressing exterior

[SuStel]

On 3/14/2019 4:42 PM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
> Unfortunately though, without having the means to express "exterior 
> surface", the problem remains.
>
> If we say the tumor protrudes from the bone, then the question is, 
> from which surface ?
>
> Most bones have four surfaces; 
> ventral/dorsal/medial-inner/lateral-outer. Let alone the fact, that 
> the need to specify outer has often to do with the need to say that 
> the tumor doesn't break through the surface of the bone facing the 
> medullary cavity.

Then you should make your wish-list choices /ventral, dorsal, 
medial-inner, and lateral-outer./

It may be telling that you are using specialized jargon to describe 
these. We don't have a lot of specialized anatomical words in Klingon -- 
we do have some -- so without being told how Klingon anatomy describes 
these, we can't answer the question of how to say it.

You might argue that you should be able to say /top of the bone, front 
of the bone, back of the bone,/ and so on. And you can, in fact, say 
these things. But again, we're working with layman's vocabulary, not jargon.

You can proclaim that we don't have a word meaning /outer surface,/ but 
you don't know that. You just know that /you/ don't know it.

You can also complain that you don't have a word meaning /outer 
surface,/ but what are we supposed to do about it?


> Anyways, I can understand that no constructed language can have words 
> for everything. But I can't understand the need to avoid admitting 
> that some missing words can be indeed at times necessary.

I don't do that. I'm doing my best to give alternatives and to speculate 
on the general case, but all I can do is speculate. There are some who 
like to force people to make their questions conform to answers they've 
already decided, but not everyone here is doing that.


> As far as the interesting question "how would I describe cancer", the 
> answer is simple:

You didn't say /cancer;/ you said /tumor. /There are multiple reasons 
for tumors.

I leave you with this question. What is the English singular, 
third-person pronoun that refers to a person but doesn't require you to 
name that person's sex? Your answer should be an uncontroversial one. 
Surely there /has/ to be a word for that, right? Klingon has one: 
*ghaH.* Why wouldn't English have such an obviously necessary word?

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name

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