On 7/27/2016 10:24 AM, Ed Bailey wrote:

jatlh Rhona Fenwick:

I don't see anything wrong with saying someone {qIvDu'Daj weqtaH} "is drumming on their knees with their palms".

jang SuStel:

In that case, your knees are a percussion instrument. You haven't deviated from the disambiguator at all--

This first of all assumes the purpose of drumming on knees is to make music, and second, we don't know Klingons would consider a body part so used to be instrument. When the voice is spoken of as an instrument, it bends the usage for effect. But even if the knee slapping is to express amusement, it's understandably similar to playing a drum.

weq doesn't mean hit an object which just happens to be a percussion instrument, whether or not the hitting is intended to make music. If a car were to ram into a drum, that would not be weq, but it certainly would be a kind of hit.

If you're rhythmically slapping your knees, or even just once when timed for audible effect, that's weq. If you just happen to hit your knees once at random, that's not weq.