Klingon Word of the Day for Tuesday, November 16, 2021 Klingon word: ngaDmoHwI' Part of speech: noun Definition: stabilizer (component of a ship) Source: KGT (222 KE, 258 EK) This Klingon Word of the Day is brought to you by qurgh (qurgh@kli.org).
Klingon Word of the Day for Tuesday, November 16, 2021 Klingon word: ngaDmoHwI' Part of speech: noun Definition: stabilizer (component of a ship) _______________________________________________ qoD QutlhwI' ngaDmoHwI' inner support stabilizer (KBoP) This refers to those ceiling supports that look like huge shock-absorbers which flank the captain's chair on a Bird of Prey. TREKNOLOGY NOTES: I'm guessing that this is not the same thing as "inertial dampeners". (Do we have words for "inertia" or "dampen" for that matter?) 23rd century Starfleet transporters have a "stabilizer circuit". (TOS "The Lights of Zetar") "Adjust the axial stabilizers to match the attitude and rotation rate of the Enterprise." (Picard, TNG "Genesis") The "transverse supports" on the damaged USS Vico were about to collapse. (TNG "Hero Worship") SEE: ngaD be stable, balanced (v) ngaDHa' be unstable, unbalanced (v) ngaDmoH stabilize (v) (KGT 150): the verb {ngaD} ("be stable, balanced" … normally applies to a ship or a physical object, not to a situation or a person. It would be inappropriate to refer to a person as {ngaD} or {ngaDHa'} in a phrase such as {tera'ngan ngaDHa'} (unstable Terran). Qutlh support (v) (qurgh, 7/27/2010): [At qep'a' 17] Marc also clarified that {Qutlh} ("support") can only refer to physically supporting something. It can't refer to monetary (he said {ghaq} is for this), psychological or any other non-physical type of support. qoD inside, interior (n) -- Voragh, Ca'Non Master of the Klingons Please contribute relevant vocabulary or notes from the last year or two. I’ve fallen woefully behind in updating my files.
On Tuesday, November 16, 2021, Steven Boozer <sboozer@uchicago.edu> wrote:
Klingon Word of the Day for Tuesday, November 16, 2021
Klingon word: ngaDmoHwI' Part of speech: noun Definition: stabilizer (component of a ship) _______________________________________________
qoD QutlhwI' ngaDmoHwI' inner support stabilizer (KBoP)
This refers to those ceiling supports that look like huge shock-absorbers which flank the captain's chair on a Bird of Prey.
TREKNOLOGY NOTES:
I'm guessing that this is not the same thing as "inertial dampeners". (Do we have words for "inertia" or "dampen" for that matter?)
You mean "damper," not "dampener." I think a good word to get the idea of "damper" across would be vItlhHa'moHwI' "deintensifer." I don't know for certain that Maltz hasn't given a word for inertia, but I think chungbe'meH Qo would describe it adequately. DaH may' bom pIm vIbom. The word ngaD, like jeD, has two glosses that are physically distinct: "balanced" meaning the forces and moments acting on a system cancel out, and "stable" that the system tends to return to a balanced state. This always bugged me, but it makes sense if "be balanced" is the basic idea of ngaD, and the word is also a short way to express "be stable." If a Klingon scientist or engineer needs to be precise in describing stability as opposed to balance, he could say something like ngaD'eghbeHmoH "be ready to balance itself" or ngaDmeH Qo "tendency to be balanced." And of course a balanced system doesn't have to be stable. nItlhwIjDaq ngaDchugh Quj moQ, tugh pum ngaDbeHbe'taHmo'. ~mIp'av
Interesting perspective. As I see it, if you drop a ball, at all moments, the forces are balanced, but they aren’t stable until the ball reaches Terminal Velocity. Gravity balances against Inertia, causing the ball to accelerate downward at a steady rate, until the acceleration force moving the air out of the way of the ball factors in, slowing the rate of the ball’s acceleration, until the balance between Gravity and Inertia for the ball and the air result in the ball’s fixed velocity, which is both balanced and stable. But I digress…
On Nov 17, 2021, at 11:47 PM, Ed Bailey <bellerophon.modeler@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tuesday, November 16, 2021, Steven Boozer <sboozer@uchicago.edu> wrote: Klingon Word of the Day for Tuesday, November 16, 2021
Klingon word: ngaDmoHwI' Part of speech: noun Definition: stabilizer (component of a ship) _______________________________________________
qoD QutlhwI' ngaDmoHwI' inner support stabilizer (KBoP)
This refers to those ceiling supports that look like huge shock-absorbers which flank the captain's chair on a Bird of Prey.
TREKNOLOGY NOTES:
I'm guessing that this is not the same thing as "inertial dampeners". (Do we have words for "inertia" or "dampen" for that matter?)
You mean "damper," not "dampener." I think a good word to get the idea of "damper" across would be vItlhHa'moHwI' "deintensifer."
I don't know for certain that Maltz hasn't given a word for inertia, but I think chungbe'meH Qo would describe it adequately.
DaH may' bom pIm vIbom. The word ngaD, like jeD, has two glosses that are physically distinct: "balanced" meaning the forces and moments acting on a system cancel out, and "stable" that the system tends to return to a balanced state. This always bugged me, but it makes sense if "be balanced" is the basic idea of ngaD, and the word is also a short way to express "be stable." If a Klingon scientist or engineer needs to be precise in describing stability as opposed to balance, he could say something like ngaD'eghbeHmoH "be ready to balance itself" or ngaDmeH Qo "tendency to be balanced." And of course a balanced system doesn't have to be stable. nItlhwIjDaq ngaDchugh Quj moQ, tugh pum ngaDbeHbe'taHmo'.
~mIp'av _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
On Wed, Nov 17, 2021 at 11:46 PM Ed Bailey <bellerophon.modeler@gmail.com> wrote:
DaH may' bom pIm vIbom. The word ngaD, like jeD, has two glosses that are physically distinct: "balanced" meaning the forces and moments acting on a system cancel out, and "stable" that the system tends to return to a balanced state.
Most people would probably not use the word "balanced" to refer to an object in an unstable equilibrium, even if the technical meaning applies. There are sometimes appropriate reasons to be pedantic, but I don't think this is one of them. When I think of someone balancing an inverted-pendulum broomstick, the word "balance" is a verb expressing an action. The Klingon verb {ngaD} is instead expressing a state or quality.
This always bugged me, but it makes sense if "be balanced" is the basic idea of ngaD, and the word is also a short way to express "be stable."
I think of it the other way. My understanding would make "stable" the fundamental meaning, with "balanced" to clarify that it's not talking about something like a lack of tendency to decay. It's like a "stable structure", not a "stable isotope" or "shelf-stable milk".
If a Klingon scientist or engineer needs to be precise in describing stability as opposed to balance, he could say something like ngaD'eghbeHmoH "be ready to balance itself" or ngaDmeH Qo "tendency to be balanced." And of course a balanced system doesn't have to be stable. nItlhwIjDaq ngaDchugh Quj moQ, tugh pum ngaDbeHbe'taHmo'.
It's precisely *because* of that discrepancy between the technical term and the colloquial one that I discount the technical meaning of "balanced". -- ghunchu'wI'
On Thu, Nov 18, 2021 at 4:36 PM Alan Anderson <qunchuy@alcaco.net> wrote:
On Wed, Nov 17, 2021 at 11:46 PM Ed Bailey <bellerophon.modeler@gmail.com> wrote:
This always bugged me, but it makes sense if "be balanced" is the basic idea of ngaD, and the word is also a short way to express "be stable."
I think of it the other way. My understanding would make "stable" the fundamental meaning, with "balanced" to clarify that it's not talking about something like a lack of tendency to decay. It's like a "stable structure", not a "stable isotope" or "shelf-stable milk".
I appreciate your thoughtful reply. Your interpretation makes more sense than mine, particularly since the glosses are given in that order. I'm still interested in using Klingon to discuss physical science, and so finding precise ways to use Klingon vocabulary, but not at the expense of flouting colloquial usage. ~mIp'av
participants (5)
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Alan Anderson -
Ed Bailey -
Klingon Word of the Day -
Steven Boozer -
Will Martin