>Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2025 21:39:50 -0400
>Subject: Re: [tlhIngan Hol] More puns
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
>
>Not to dispute your analysis necessarily...
>
>On 7/21/25 9:26 PM, James Landau via tlhIngan-Hol wrote:
>>
>> pa'nItlh (aisle): "Clean up" backwards. As in the PA announcement:
>> "Josh, clean up aisle 24!"
>
>I thought of this more as "room-finger"; an aisle being sort of a long
>extended room/empty space (but that would be a hallway?)
I didn't even think of "room-finger"! The rightmost column on the wiki qep'a' 2025 wordlist, though, says it's new instead of combined. There are a number of errors in that column, though.
>> poH (session, shift): "Hop"-ing from one employee's shift to another.
>
>I feel this is a coincidence, since the other meaning of "poH" (time) is
>perfectly sensible here, and this is just informing us that the meaning
>extends to this.
>
>
>> teb (compensate, monetarily): "Bet" backwards.
>
>Same with this.? The ordinary meaning "fill" makes sense as a metaphoric
>use for compensation.
That makes sense.
>> 'abched (vitamin): Vitamins A, B, C, D, and E.
>
>Yeah, that was so obvious even I noticed it.
What exactly do you mean by "even I"? Are you saying that you're usually unsuccessful at noticing puns in Klingon words?
>> 'erQen (phrase): "Phrase" os a homophone of "frays". *Qen* means to be
>> naked, like a frayed object. "Er" is the German word for "he", which
>> suggests that it's the form of a verb you'd use with "he", i.e. the
>> third person singular present. Like adding -s onto "fray". Does this
>> sound convincing?
>>
>Not particularly, but it doesn't have to be.? There doesn't *have* to be
>a pun basis for every word, but that doesn't mean it's wrong to find
>one.? Even if what you find is totally not what Okrand had in mind and
>is purely a figment of your imagination, it can still be a useful
>mnemonic, if it works for you.
Food for thought.
>ngel'aH = peasant, partly xifan hol from "fellah" (Arabic word for a
>peasant)
I noticed that one too, when I started checking the ng- words for xifan puns, and was going to post on this mailing list about *ngel'aH*/fellah, but you beat me to it! Sharp eyes!
>qech'on -> Lithium (and/or batteries made thereof) have a high chance to
>"catch on" fire.
Wow, I didn't notice this one! Probably because if I were Okrand and creating a Klingon word based on "catch on fire", I would've spelled it *qech'an* with an A instead of *qech'on* with an O. *tamler* and such words are spelt with A, after all.
>There had to be a punny reason he didn't just use {puj}
+1
I was really expecting that Okrand would simply make the word for "lithium" *puj*, based on the precedent with *cha'puj*.