On Wed, 1 May 2019 at 18:12, Steven Boozer <sboozer@uchicago.edu> wrote:

PUN:
Japanese light soy sauce (often served in restaurants) is called Usu sauce (usu-kuchi shoya).

Do we know what {'uSu} actually looks like? Another possibility is the "yuzu" plant, which is also used to make various sauces:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuzu

However, if this is a pun, I don't believe it was invented by Okrand. He was backfitting a line from the DS9 episode "Melora". In fact, the line, as retrofit, makes no sense in {ta' Hol}.

http://www.chakoteya.net/DS9/426.htm

BASHIR: Let's see we'll have some racht of course

CHEF: Racht.

(A handful of worms plonked onto a plate)

BASHIR: And a double order of gladst. No sauce please.

CHEF: Gladst usu bal.

BASHIR: And a side order of zilm'kach. Is that too much for two?

CHEF: Zilm'kach.

(He puts some apricot pieces on the plate and hands it over.)

CHEF: Drak doo.

{raHta'}, {tlhatlh}, {'uSu'}, {bal}, and {tlhImqach} were all backfits to the dialogue as written.

{tlhatlh 'uSu' bal} would, of course, mean "gladst, a bottle of sauce" and not "gladst, no sauce"!

"Drak doo" could be some kind of Klingon dialect for {DaH yIDIl}.

De'vID