[tlhIngan Hol] Klingon Word of the Day: yaDpach

[Will Martin]

I’m with SuStel on this one.

As convenient as it would be to have a word for toenail, and as logical as this parallel-to-another-word-we-have as this may be, if it’s not in the lexicon, it’s not in the lexicon. We can ask Okrand/Maltz for it, but we can’t just take it for ourselves.

We could also use it, marking it perhaps with an asterisk, just to remind ourselves that it’s not a Klingon word, even if we really, REALLY need the word “toenail” in our precious tlhIngan communications, and we humans who are speaking Klingon can understand, even if we are using a local-community-created neologism, extending the vocabulary beyond the Emperor’s dialect. Perhaps in conversation, we might raise our hands and make air quotes.

Basically, this isn’t English. In Klingon, unlike English, we can’t glom new smorphs whenever we want and expect everyone to grock our synosinclastic symnabulisms.

charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan

rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.

> On Feb 2, 2021, at 10:25 AM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> 
> On 2/1/2021 11:05 AM, Steven Boozer wrote:
>> Klingon Word of the Day for Saturday, January 30, 2021
>> 
>> Klingon word: 	yaDpach
>> Part of speech: 	noun
>> Definition: 	toenail
>> Source: 
>> _______________________________________________
>> 
>> Has this one been confirmed?  I thought it was just a suggested form used on the mailing list, modelled on {nItlhpach} "fingernail".
> Annoyingly, boQwI' says, "This word does not seem to have appeared in canon, but it is obvious by analogy with nItlhpach..."
> 
> Nuh-uh. That's not how it works. If its origin is just someone who isn't Okrand making it up, this word has no business being here.
> 
> -- 
> SuStel
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