[tlhIngan Hol] Klingon Word of the Day: puS

[SuStel]

On 5/25/2021 9:59 AM, Will Martin wrote:
> I was with you 100% until that last detail of your interpretation. I 
> don’t get 5,000 out of “be few, be several, be a handful”, regardless 
> of context. I quite honestly think you’ve gone to one extreme at least 
> as far as I went to the other, and I doubt there’s anything like 
> justification for that extreme interpretation in either canon or 
> conversation with Okrand.
>
> That’s not claiming that I’m right and you are wrong. I’m merely 
> stating that I am nothing like convinced that 5,000 of anything could 
> be {puS} in anything but a comparative grammatical construction. 
> Outside of that very fossilized construction, it quite sincerely does 
> not feel like the right word.

You have misread my message. I said I have 5,000 soldiers, you have 600 
soldiers, and your 600 soldiers are *puS.* Yes, your 600 are few only in 
comparison to my 5,000, but that's my point: the word doesn't only mean 
three to five.

On the other hand, if I have 600 soldiers assigned to guard a single 
prisoner, there is no way you can call them *puS.* It's relative and 
context-dependent.

*puS,* like /few,/ is one of those words that only has a definite 
meaning in context. Another is *law'.* How many soldiers are *law'?* 
That depends on what you need them for and what they're up against.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name

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