On 9/27/2019 12:42 PM, Will Martin wrote:
And just to add one more element to the discussion, isn’t {paq’batlh} poetry?
We’ve been specifically told that in poetry, the plural suffixes are not bound by normal rules of grammar. Admittedly, that was in reference to the rare, poetic use of {-mey} on body parts, but in TKD, for either beings capable of language or body parts, using {-mey} always refers to the “scattered all about” meaning, either in poetry or normal speech. There’s no reference to it being intentionally used as an insult in TKD or the Addendum.
We're only told that body parts that use *-mey* to mean /scattered all about/ only appear in poetry. The best you can say here is a blanket statement that the whole thing is poetry, and who knows what poetic license the poet took? (And come to think of it, I think it's supposed to be a translation of a translation, not the original poet's exact words.) -- SuStel http://trimboli.name