On Thu, Oct 26, 2017 at 09:58:01AM -0400, SuStel wrote:

On 10/26/2017 9:52 AM, Lieven wrote:

...

I am always telling people that when they want to write and print something in Klingon, they should use the typographical apostrophe that looks like a small "9", or like a flying comma.

This has been used like this on Okrand's 3 books, but otherwise I started to wonder... why?

Is there any reason or source or whatever that says that {’orwI’} is better than {'orwI'}? Does this {'} mean anything else than {’}? Or is this just for the look?

I've never understood why people say that, unless it's just a rigid adherence to the style guide that produced TKD. Personally, I'd rather see straight quotes, to distinguish them from actual quotation marks.

I think it's important that we not worry about the distinction, as long as the resulting text is legible. I would not be surprised to find that many people aren't even aware that those are separate characters, and getting the right one into your text will be a pain if i.e. the editor autocorrects one to the other. And even if we used one for the glottal stop and the other for the single quote, they would still be easy enough to confuse that it would be wise to avoid single quotes. - SapIr

Appearances aside... if you're compiling lists make sure that whatever symbol you use is actually searchable. Some word processors and databases ignore the little curved alephs and 'ayins (Lieven's "flying commas"). You want to be able to distinguish {mu'ghom} from {mughom}, {Qo'noS} from {QonoS}, etc. Trust me! -- Voragh Ca'Non Master of the Klingons -----Original Message----- From: kechpaja On Thu, Oct 26, 2017 at 09:58:01AM -0400, SuStel wrote:

On 10/26/2017 9:52 AM, Lieven wrote:

...

I am always telling people that when they want to write and print something in Klingon, they should use the typographical apostrophe that looks like a small "9", or like a flying comma.

This has been used like this on Okrand's 3 books, but otherwise I started to wonder... why?

Is there any reason or source or whatever that says that {’orwI’} is better than {'orwI'}? Does this {'} mean anything else than {’}? Or is this just for the look?

I've never understood why people say that, unless it's just a rigid adherence to the style guide that produced TKD. Personally, I'd rather see straight quotes, to distinguish them from actual quotation marks.

I think it's important that we not worry about the distinction, as long as the resulting text is legible. I would not be surprised to find that many people aren't even aware that those are separate characters, and getting the right one into your text will be a pain if i.e. the editor autocorrects one to the other. And even if we used one for the glottal stop and the other for the single quote, they would still be easy enough to confuse that it would be wise to avoid single quotes. - SapIr

I'm just going to be difficult and suggest we all use ʻ (the ʻokina). ~ʻanan naHQun

On 10/26/2017 2:55 PM, mayqel qunenoS wrote:

The next level of this discussion will be, while writing klingon, to use paper of the same chemical composition as the paper on which the tkd was printed.

pey ghajbe'bogh navDaq neH tlhIngan Hol vIghItlh! -- SuStel http://trimboli.name

On 10/26/2017 3:18 PM, Lieven wrote:

Am 26.10.2017 um 20:55 schrieb mayqel qunenoS:

...

In my opinion, the whole subject is ridiculous and that's an understatement.

I agree it's a kind of strange question, but still I meant this very seriously. Maybe Okrand did this intentionally, or the typesetter just chose this because he liked it.

Okrand still uses ’ in his emails, so I wondered if there is a reason, and if there's a real difference.

But after all, it really does not matter.

I find it extremely unlikely that Okrand chose the typeface or was allowed to dictate the style guide of his books. At best, he may have given directions that Klingon is to be set in bold type. In TKD, English translations were set in italic type, while in KGT they were put in quotation marks; he may have had a say in that. He probably got to see proofs of the books before they were printed, at which point he could have noticed any serious problems with whatever typeface they used. (And yet, the list of useful phrases in TKD appear in a sans serif typeface anyway.) What email client does Okrand use (check message headers)? Does it produce smart quotes automatically, or does he go out of his way to insert them intentionally? -- SuStel http://trimboli.name

Am 26.10.2017 um 21:49 schrieb mayqel qunenoS:

But again I will ask; why doesn't someone ask 'oqranD in the qepHom to come ?

I surely will ask him, but there will be many other questions. Like "Red wine or white wine?" :-) -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.klingonisch.net http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/QepHomSaarbrücken

On Thursday, 26 October 2017 21:05:47 BST qurgh lungqIj wrote:

...

Like "Red wine or white wine?" :-)

Doq! Merlot QaQ Cabernet sauvignon QaQ joq vIchup! :D

qurgh

DoyIchlanDaq vIraS HIq vIchupbe'. DoyIchlan HIq 'ey vIchup. mupwI'

Speaking as someone who often copies-and-pastes text from emails and websites into my notes, you never know which symbol/letter you’re going to get. Depending on your display settings you may not be able to tell one from another. But some forms are unsearchable -- or rather they are ignored when searching -- and have to be manually fixed. So this discussion isn’t as esoteric as it sounds. --Voragh From: qurgh lungqIj On Thu, Oct 26, 2017 at 3:49 PM, mayqel qunenoS <mihkoun@gmail.com<mailto:mihkoun@gmail.com>> wrote: For what is worth, before reading this thread I hadn't even realized that there are two types of qaghwI'. There's also a third one. The back-tick `. I've known a number of people who used that ONLY when writing Klingon. As a programmer, using one and not the other is important, as they are all technically different characters to the computer. If someone tries to search Hol 'ampaS using ` or the curly one that I can't type with my keyboard layout, then they won't get any valid results. In fact, ` can actually break stuff as it has special usage when working with some database systems.

My keyboard does not have two separate keys for a straight and curly. So I use whatever it is that the computer generates when I hit that one key. And, I operate in a plain-text world, both at work and at home; so I don't have any auto-replace features like what are on by default in most software, and thus used by most people who don't bother with changing their default settings. ' - DloraH

Am 26.10.2017 um 21:41 schrieb SuStel:

What email client does Okrand use (check message headers)? Does it produce smart quotes automatically, or does he go out of his way to insert them intentionally?

It seems he does not do it intentionally; most of his mails use normal {'} apostrophes, and the few that use the curly ones, also use them for the english words (as in can't). So I suppose that's just an automatic conversion due to software (which seems to be "MSword"). -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.klingonisch.net http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/Apostrophe

Am 27.10.2017 um 10:30 schrieb MorphemeAddict:

Lieven, that removal by Excel of apostrophes occurs only when the apostrophe is initial. Excel uses an initial apostrophe to mark a string of characters, distinct from a numerical value.

Yes, I know that, and that's very annoying when making klingon word lists in Excel. -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.klingonisch.net http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/StarTrekDiscovery