naw'wat (n) remote, small, desolate place And I wonder.. Why does a remote, desolate place necessarily need to be small? Aren't there remote, desolate places of the "big" kind? So why would 'oqranD give a word, which on one hand functions as a tool to express ourselves further, but at the same time tie our hands restricting its' meaning like this? If 'oqranD had defined {naw'wat} as "remote, desolate place", and that's it, then it would be easy to describe it further as "big" or "small", and only if the size of the place was actually of any significance. But now we can't. So we're stuck with a word that only works one third of the time: 1/3 remote, desolate place which is big 1/3 remote, desolate place which is small 1/3 remote, desolate place which is average ~ Dana'an
And in order to avoid any misunderstandings, my problem isn't how to describe a "remote, desolate place" of whatever size. Of course I can do that. It's just that I find it quite disappointing to realize that a new word, instead of functioning as a tool to broaden our ways of expressing ourselves, ends up with a very limited scope of application. 'a DaH naDev qaSchoHpu' ram, vaj jIQongnIS. jangchugh vay', wa'leS QInDaj vIlaD. maj ram, bInajtaHvIS qeylIS Daghomjaj, and similar klingon crap.. ~ Dana'an
If a remote place were large enough, you might find something to do there, at which point you’d have no reason to say to yourself, “Now, what?"
On Sep 12, 2021, at 1:57 PM, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
naw'wat (n) remote, small, desolate place
And I wonder.. Why does a remote, desolate place necessarily need to be small? Aren't there remote, desolate places of the "big" kind?
So why would 'oqranD give a word, which on one hand functions as a tool to express ourselves further, but at the same time tie our hands restricting its' meaning like this?
If 'oqranD had defined {naw'wat} as "remote, desolate place", and that's it, then it would be easy to describe it further as "big" or "small", and only if the size of the place was actually of any significance. But now we can't.
So we're stuck with a word that only works one third of the time:
1/3 remote, desolate place which is big 1/3 remote, desolate place which is small 1/3 remote, desolate place which is average
~ Dana'an _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org <mailto:tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org> http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org <http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org>
On Sun, Sep 12, 2021 at 1:57 PM mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
naw'wat (n) remote, small, desolate place
And I wonder.. Why does a remote, desolate place necessarily need to be small? Aren't there remote, desolate places of the "big" kind?
What remote, desolate, big places do you have in mind? I suppose a distant planet could be described that way, but I feel like the intent of the word is to refer to places like (for example) a distant outpost in northern Greenland or a small town buried deep in a dense forest. A backwater in the middle of nowhere, to use more idiomatic English. It's just that I find it quite disappointing to realize that a new word,
instead of functioning as a tool to broaden our ways of expressing ourselves, ends up with a very limited scope of application.
Before *naw'wat*, we didn't have any single words for concisely referring to remote, desolate places of any size, so it's hard to say it didn't broaden our ways of expressing ourselves.
On 9/12/2021 1:57 PM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
naw'wat (n) remote, small, desolate place
And I wonder.. Why does a remote, desolate place necessarily need to be small? Aren't there remote, desolate places of the "big" kind?
So why would 'oqranD give a word, which on one hand functions as a tool to express ourselves further, but at the same time tie our hands restricting its' meaning like this?
Because the word refers to a place, not an area. It refers to a place isolated in a desolate area, which makes the place relatively small. If the place were large, it wouldn't be isolated in its desolation.
If 'oqranD had defined {naw'wat} as "remote, desolate place", and that's it, then it would be easy to describe it further as "big" or "small", and only if the size of the place was actually of any significance. But now we can't.
Big and small are relative. The pun of the word *naw'wat* is that /NowWhat/ is the name of an isolated, backwater planet in /Mostly Harmless,/ the fifth book of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. When the settlers arrived at this miserable planet in the middle of nowhere, the first thing they said was, "Now what?" It's an entire planet, but compared to the vast scale of the galaxy, with all the interesting things in it, this lousy, awful, and isolated planet is a *naw'wat.* -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
nIqolay Q:
What remote, desolate, big places do you have in mind? SuStel: Because the word refers to a place, not an area. It refers to a place isolated in a desolate area, which makes the place relatively small. If the place were large, it wouldn't be isolated in its desolation.
I'm confused by this distinction between "place" and "area"; so I'll write an example. You set out to visit the rocky mountains, but your gps malfunctions. You end up driving hours in the wilderness, and after having driven on some godforsaken dirt road, you exit your car, not having seen a single sign of civilization for the past 300 miles. All you see, is uncultivated, untouched by human hand, wilderness, as far as the eye can see. Don't you call that in english "remote, desolate place"? ~ Dana'an don't let the bastards grind you down
On 9/13/2021 7:40 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
nIqolay Q:
What remote, desolate, big places do you have in mind? SuStel: Because the word refers to a place, not an area. It refers to a place isolated in a desolate area, which makes the place relatively small. If the place were large, it wouldn't be isolated in its desolation. I'm confused by this distinction between "place" and "area"; so I'll write an example.
You set out to visit the rocky mountains, but your gps malfunctions. You end up driving hours in the wilderness, and after having driven on some godforsaken dirt road, you exit your car, not having seen a single sign of civilization for the past 300 miles. All you see, is uncultivated, untouched by human hand, wilderness, as far as the eye can see.
Don't you call that in english "remote, desolate place"?
I call your current position a remote, desolate place, but I don't call the entire desolation that. Suppose your house stands on the edge of a desert. Every day you wake up and look out your southern windows and see only desolation. You look out your northern windows and see your city. The area of desolation to your south is not remote — it's right there. Now go out into the desert. You're far from anybody or any human dwelling. You stand in one spot and consider that spot remote (from others) and desolate. The whole desert isn't remote, just particular spots in the desert. And compared to the entire desert, that one spot is small. It's the same desert as when you were looking at it from your house, but now you're isolated inside it. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 7:47 AM mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
nIqolay Q:
What remote, desolate, big places do you have in mind? SuStel: Because the word refers to a place, not an area. It refers to a place isolated in a desolate area, which makes the place relatively small. If the place were large, it wouldn't be isolated in its desolation.
I'm confused by this distinction between "place" and "area"; so I'll write an example.
You set out to visit the rocky mountains, but your gps malfunctions. You end up driving hours in the wilderness, and after having driven on some godforsaken dirt road, you exit your car, not having seen a single sign of civilization for the past 300 miles. All you see, is uncultivated, untouched by human hand, wilderness, as far as the eye can see.
Don't you call that in english "remote, desolate place"?
I'd probably call it remote and desolate, yes. But I don't think I would call the Rockies themselves "the middle of nowhere" (which seems to be the implied idiomatic English translation with *naw'wat*). In this case, they *are* the nowhere, which I am in the middle of. (Actually, they're pretty nice, from what I remember.) Regarding the original topic, though: there are still plenty of uses for *naw'wat*, even if it doesn't include vast, desolate areas. I'm not sure what the problem is, really. (I suppose you could refer to a place like Antarctica as a *naw'wat'a'*, if you were feeling facetious.)
participants (4)
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mayqel qunen'oS -
nIqolay Q -
SuStel -
Will Martin