[tlhIngan Hol] both are equally useless

[Will Martin]

I find {qen cha’ vIghro’ mIllogh vIleghpu’} worthy of contemplation as I continue to try to improve my understanding of the difference between tense, which Klingon lacks, and the perfective, which Klingon has.

Were I writing it, I would have either used {qen} or {-pu’}, but not both because right now, seeing the picture is a completed action, and “recently” the action was taking place, with no significance placed upon the completion of the action of seeing. The rest of the post follows with either the statement that I recently saw the pictures, or I have seen the pictures, but “I recently had seen the pictures” seems unnecessarily restrictive in terms of setting the time context of what follows.

I don’t think it’s grammatically wrong. I just think it pulls the focus of my attention in an unnecessary time-centric direction which doesn’t serve the point of the message, which is that the speaker thinks hope and prayers are equally useless.

Meanwhile, on the topic, I think that hope and prayers are both internal, possibly useful in terms of sustaining ones attention toward specific goals beyond the point where they would otherwise be forgotten, even as these internally sustained focuses on one’s attention are externally useless in terms of influencing Fate.

If you act based upon hopes and prayers, you might influence Fate, but if you passively hope and pray and do nothing, the only significant feature of your behavior is that you do nothing, and you might as well hope and pray that your cat fetch the morning paper and make you some coffee. Your internal “actions” might entertain you, but they won’t influence the cat.

SoHvaD qa’vIn vut vIghro’ QunvaD Dajalbogh ‘e’ Dachupchugh tu’HomI’raH DaDaba’.

pItlh

charghwI’ ‘utlh
(ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)




> On Aug 25, 2021, at 8:59 AM, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> e
> 
> Recently I saw a picture of two cats, posted by their owner; and their owner had written under the picture: "I named one 'prayer' and the other 'hope', since both are equally useless".
> 
> At first, seeing the pic of the two silly cats, and the things their owner wrote, I laughed.. But then I realize he was right.
> 
> I don't know whether his cats were truly useless, but prayers and hopes definitely are.
> 
> t
> 
> qen cha' vIghro' mIllogh vIleghpu'; mIlloghvam 'agh vIghro'meyvam ghajwI'. mIlloghvam bIngDaq qonpu' nuvvam: < wa'vaD {QunvaD jatlh} vIpong, latlhvaD {tul} vIpong. lI'Ha'chu'mo' wa', 'ej jaSHa' lI'Ha'chu'mo' latlh, bIHvaD pongmeyvam vIwIvpu' >.
> 
> bI'reS, cha' vIghro'vam Dogh mIllogh vIleghpu'DI', jIHaghchoHpu'.. 'a lugh loDvam ghIq 'e' vItlhoj.
> 
> lI'Ha'chu' vIghro'meyDaj 'e' vISovbe'; 'a QunvaD jatlh vay' qoj tul vay'; lI'Ha'bej wanI'meyvam.
> 
> ~ Dana'an
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