I'm rather sleep-deprived, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow before participating in the large debate which I'm sure this will elicit, but: I wouldn't use {jay'} when making a compliment. {jay'} is invective, not just emphatic. You're basically saying "Your mother bakes jinxed food, and this fills me with contempt." When we say something is damn good, we're using a vulgar expression, but we're not using it invectively. I doubt the average Klingon would find the damnation of gods particularly important (they're all dead, anyway), so it probably wouldn't be a part of idiomatic speech (although you never know). However, if you wish to explain the Terran phrase, you might want to construct a relative clause using joH'a'/Qun, and pum/qIch/QeHmoH. //loghaD ________________________________ From: tlhIngan-Hol <tlhingan-hol-bounces@lists.kli.org> on behalf of mayqel qunenoS <mihkoun@gmail.com> Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 14:40 To: tlhIngan Hol mailing list Subject: [tlhIngan Hol] Expressing "god damn" So, I've been wondering for quite some time now, how to express the DIvI' Hol "god damn". How to convey its essence in klingon.. Of course the question is: what does "god damn" exactly mean ? does it mean that "god damns whatever", or the one who speaks "damns/curses god" ? Anyway, the way I *feel* this wonderful DIvI' Hol expression, if I wanted to say: "your mother cooked this god damn food" I would express it like this in tlhIngan Hol: {Sojvam 'Igh vutta' SoSlI' jay'} the only problem is that the element of "god" is missing from this sentence; but I believe this is indirectly being conveyed by the {'Igh}. when something is cursed, either god has done the "cursing", or a human through "god". so, I think that by the proper combination of {'Igh} and {jay'}, we can express in klingon this wonderful english expression. 'ej DaH, rIn QInvam 'Igh jay' ! hahaha qunnoH jan puqloD ghoghwIj HablI'vo' vIngeHta'