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?)
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.
'abched (vitamin): Vitamins A, B, C, D, and E.
Yeah, that was so obvious even I noticed it.
'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. ~mark