[tlhIngan Hol] lightning lightning bolt and {pe'bIl}

[Will Martin]

The arrow in a crossbow is called a “bolt”. If you are thinking of lightning as a thing that travels from the sky to the ground, then you are thinking of it as a thing that is like a bolt. If it’s a thing that travels from a god’s hand to a target, it is like a bolt.

Meanwhile, lightning travels at the pretty much the speed of light. We talk about it going from the clouds to the ground or from the ground to the clouds, but when we say that, we are, in abstract, talking about which way the electrons are flowing. In terms of human experience, a lightning bolt doesn’t travel ANYWHERE. If you turn on a flashlight, do you perceive the light as it “leaves” the flashlight” and “goes out” towards the world? If you use a laser pointer, do you see the beam leave the pointer and hit the target?

No.

In lightning’s case, It just appears, full sized from nothing visible to something that has one end in the clouds and the other end on the ground. Neither end appears first.

I know.

I’ve had it hit within maybe 30 feet of me while I was walking home last summer. It was quite memorable. It happened so fast, I didn’t really see it. I just remembered seeing it, because by the time I figured out wtf happened, it was already gone. I definitely remembered seeing it. I just didn’t experience the vision until it was gone.

No rain. Not much in the way of clouds. BAM!

I also distinctly heard a zapping sound just before the boom, though both sounds were examined in memory without sufficient present-tense attention to register the sensations until they were over.

It was interesting to have a threat come and go before i had time for an adrenal reaction.

I still had the reaction. I just paused, feeling all this manic energy build and it was obvious that there is nothing useful to do with the impulse. I decided to start dancing; mostly appalachian clogging, since that’s pretty much the most energy-intensive dancing I know how to do without the help of a partner’s momentum. It sufficiently diffused the mania that I bypassed the urge to scream or cry. Otherwise, it felt as if my chest would burst.

charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan

rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.




> On May 24, 2021, at 10:50 AM, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Thank you SuStel, voragh, and charghwI' for taking the time to reply.
> 
> voragh:
> > Or is lightning (the general phenomenon) an attribute 
> > of another god whom you need to distinguish from Zeus?
> 
> No, the only god in reference to whom I've seen the lightning bolt is Zeus.
> 
> In the beginning, I hadn't given much thought to this matter, and used {pe'bIl}, because I thought that in English lightning and lightning bolt were actually the same. Until I wondered why all English sources about Zeus say "lightning bolt" instead of just "lightning". It was then when I became confused. On the other hand though, I thought "but I've never heard someone say in English 'he was hit by a lightning bolt', so how much of a difference can there be"?
> 
> Anyways, I understand now, so thanks. I'll just keep using {pe'bIl} on its' own.
> 
> ~ Dana'an
> o zeus, o father, o king!
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