On 11/1/2021 6:39 PM, Mark E. Shoulson wrote:

(I know, I don't usually answer here.  Fact is, I hardly ever even see posts from this list _except_ ones from SuStel, which for whatever reason aren't sorted into the right mail bucket.  But just something to mention.)

chaq .name par QIn pojwI'lIj.

chaq; jISovbe'.

On 11/1/21 11:54, SuStel wrote:

We have different words for the noun wind and what it does, blow. I'm not sure Klingons would say things like SuS SuS the wind blows, because it's just saying the same word over again. I suspect they'd say something like SuS 'e' DaQoylaH'a' Can you hear it blow? meaning, sort of, Can you hear that it is windy? This is just my guess.

Not that there's anything wrong with your suggestion, but do note that "just saying the same word over again" is not all that uncommon or strange-sounding in many languages.  You can live your life or die a horrible death; W.S. Gilbert's Judge in _Trial by Jury_ sings of how he "danced a dance," or you can sing a song.  OK, these are not _precisely_ the same words, but you could probably find examples like these that have the same word.

That's true, and I'm probably overreacting. But I think it's the exact repetition that bothers me.

"Excuse me, darling, but what is it exactly that you do do?"

Yes, "do do" is a known howler, as we use "do" as an auxiliary verb a lot and particularly for emphasis (because we always use it for negation, and dropping just the negation part leaves a marked form of the verb.)  And "doo-doo" is a funny word with cultural loading and that's important too.  We don't have a problem with "had had", or even "that that" ("He had had an idea that that which had been bothering her was beyond his comprehension.") I sometimes try to train myself to say "indeed do" instead of "do do" for those emphasis situations, with mixed results.  And "danced a dance" only fails the identical word test because of tense; if it happened in a different tense or mood, you could easily ask if someone could dance a dance on the tightrope.  You can also "walk the walk and talk the talk," though that is definitely a special phrase and colloquial.  Less common ones might be, I dunno, you could sneeze a tremendous sneeze or... well, actually it is completely normal and common to smell a smell ("a smelly smell that smells... smelly.")  Eh, whatever.  I don't think the duplicated word is necessarily going to sound marked (though surely people would notice it, even as we can notice these.)  And there could be quibbles about the agentless use of SuS.  Does a wind blow the same way that kindling burns?  If so, that's probably not so great in Klingon, having it as the subject.

~mark