<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">A relative clause as a time stamp?<div><br></div><div>Novel? Yes. And clever. I don’t know that it is disallowed, but I’m pretty sure it has no peer in canon. It boldly goes. I’ll give it that. <br><br><div id="AppleMailSignature" dir="ltr">Sent from my iPhone. <br><div>Will</div></div><div dir="ltr"><br>On Feb 9, 2019, at 10:08 PM, nIqolay Q <<a href="mailto:niqolay0@gmail.com">niqolay0@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Feb 9, 2019 at 6:26 PM Will Martin <<a href="mailto:willmartin2@mac.com">willmartin2@mac.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><br>
In other words, I’m trying to explain to you why this phrase is particularly difficult to translate. <br></blockquote><div><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gmail_default">The reason this phrase is particularly difficult to translate is because Maltz hasn't provided a word or idiom for referring to "almost a period of time". There are, after all, plenty of phrases that would be utterly taboo for a Klingon to utter that we can translate easily: <b>tera'nganpu' SuvvIp qeylIS. </b>The opening to TKW points out that aphorisms aren't always universal within their culture, and might be contradicted in other contexts by another belief or aphorism. I don't see why this same logic wouldn't apply to a remark Worf makes in the context of Klingon punctuality. <br></div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gmail_default">It makes sense that a Klingon would try to avoid being approximate when telling you that a meeting is at such-and-such a time, because that connotes indecisiveness or an inability to control one's schedule. But there's no such indecisiveness when talking about something being "almost thirty years ago" or "approximately five meters". They're not leaving off the however-many decimal places because they can't make up their mind. They're leaving them off because the order of magnitude of the thing in question is what's important to the conversation, not the exact dimensions.<br></div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gmail_default">As for the original topic, one idea might be to use a phrase like <b>wa' tlhoS naQbogh ben</b><i> One almost-complete year ago.</i> I'm not sure of the best way to use that construction for other "almost" measurements.<br></div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gmail_default"><br></div></div></div>
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