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Reply-To: tlhIngan-Hol@kli.org
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 14:23:05 EDT
From: Teresh000@aol.com
Subject: Dangerous pun?
To: <tlhingan-hol@kli.org>
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I was looking at the new words from Maltz, and have become very uncomfortable with one of them: {tuqnIgh} 'member of a House'.  Why?  Since {tuq} means 'House', given the sound of the following element, this becomes a pun that sounds (to me) very much like "house n*gger" (a reference to a token black, or "Uncle Tom" sort of person). 

Am I being too sensitive, or reading too much into it? Consider: 
a. the word "nig" is a fairly common shortening of the actual N-word.
b. the word {tuqnIgh} does refer to a person (not an object).
c. MO is known for his lexical puns (not that I think this "pun" is intentional).
d. many of the actors who portrayed Klingons are black. 
e. having read what I just wrote, would _you_ be comfortable telling Michael Dorn, "So, you're Martok's {tuqnIgh}, see?"

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I think it would be a shame to leave the potential for offense when the solution to removing it is so simple.  Someone with regular contact with MO should ask him to check again with Maltz and see if they didn't get the spelling of that word wrong.  And they should do it fast!

-- ter'eS

http://www.geocities.com/teresh_2000
http://www.geocities.com/weseb_2000

--=-=-=--

From nobody Wed Oct  4 10:16:13 2000
Sender: vsync@piro.quadium.net
To: tlhIngan-Hol@kli.org
Subject: Re: Dangerous pun?
References: <25.b93762b.270ca1fc@aol.com>
From: vsync <vsync@quadium.net>
Organization: quadium.net
Date: 04 Oct 2000 10:16:11 -0700
In-Reply-To: Teresh000@aol.com's message of "Wed, 04 Oct 2000 11:08:43 EDT"
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I've been lurking for close to a year now, and I haven't even gotten
around to purchasing TKD (one of these days...  =).  I would like to
jump in here, however, and address this complete lunacy for a moment.

Teresh000@aol.com writes:

> 2.  It is true that, strictly speaking, {gh} is not the same sound
> as /g/, but, for the average fan of Klingon, they are
> indistinguishable in use.

Oh, so now it doesn't matter if the word even sounds like what you're
complaining about?  Ridiculous as this whole discussion is, I would
personally have a little more respect for it if you limited the
argument to _people who bothered to pronounce Klingon correctly_.  In
my high school Spanish class, I knew people who deliberately
mispronounced Spanish words to make insults, but no one complained
that Spanish is a racist or sexist language.

(Might as well stir up the pot a little... =)  Perhaps you are
projecting these racist sentiments from your own mind?


> 3. It doesn't matter that {nIgh} is not intentionally part of the
> N-word. The mere sound coincidence is problem enough.  Perception is

Baloney.

> reality; it doesn't matter if MO didn't intend to cause offense (and

Baloney.

> I firmly believe he did not).  The aide to the Mayor of Washington,
> D.C. was fired last year for using the word "niggardly" to describe
> Federal support for his programs.  The statement made no reference
> to blacks, and the word isn't etymologically connected to the N-word
> or even spelled like it, but offense was taken, and he paid the
> price.

Yes, and that was the most disgusting event I have heard of in a long
time.  It's gotten to the point that you can't use words longer than 2 
syllables without somebody whining about it instead of picking up a
dictionary.

> 4. It's true we've never negotiated with MO about words before, but
> we've never had a word quite like this one before, either.  As you

Yes, and there hasn't been a word exactly like butlh before either.
It's another language!

> point out, this is a term of honor.  It's likely that KAG groups all
> over will want to begin using this word.  Some members of those
> groups are black.  If I were black and a KAG member, I'd hate to be
> in the position of being confronted with this word on a regular
> basis.

*hem* If you were black _and stupid_.

> It's been my experience that non-U.S. Americans don't really get the
> nuances of U.S. American racial politics.  As a thought experiment,
> to see if you can get an idea of the kind of offense I think this
> word can cause, imagine that MO's next group of "Maltz words"
> includes the terms {qa'nuq} 'a minor appendage to a more important
> object', {natsIy'} 'the ideal form of government', and {say'tlhon}
> 'a final solution to a nagging problem'.  Would it matter that he
> didn't do it on purpose?

It wouldn't matter!  See above.

> I realize that this is a very U.S.A.-centric concern, but, let's
> face it, most of the fans of Star Trek and of Klingon are
> U.S. Americans.  If {tuqnIgh} meant something offensive in Basque, I
> probably wouldn't care. 8+)

So freakin' what?!  I don't care if a trillion people got up in arms
about it.  Lots of people were upset about "niggardly", too, and they
were Wrong.  "Niggardly" is a perfectly good word with nuances of
meaning.  (Insert allusion to Newspeak here)

Whining about how "the US is bigger" is lame.  I live in the US.  I
think it's a great country, and with a little effort it could be much
closer to what I'd want.  The main problem is that most Americans are
arrogant fools.  They see [country]/[language]/[ethnic] doing
something and they whine about it, because "it's not how Americans do
it".  Normally it would surprise me to see the same behavior on this
list that I experienced from high school freshmen.

Klingons ain't Americans!

I really liked that example about "phuc".

-- 
vsync
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From nobody Sat Oct 21 01:48:56 2000
Sender: vsync@piro.quadium.net
To: Teresh000@aol.com
Subject: Re: Lay off (was Re: Dangerous pun?)
References: <b2.b76dfd6.270cd83a@aol.com>
From: vsync <vsync@quadium.net>
Organization: quadium.net
Date: 21 Oct 2000 01:48:56 -0700
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X-Gnus-Article-Number: 885   Sat Oct 21 01:48:56 2000

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you.  I've been fairly busy at
work and also just switched the operating system on my home computer.

Teresh000@aol.com writes:

> I'm taking this off the public list, because we've wasted enough
> bandwidth on it.  One thing that always amazes me when I get into
> these types of discussions is how vehement people get in their
> denials.  I was not angry or upset about this issue.  I simply
> pointed out what I saw as a very fixable potential problem, invited
> the group to give me their opinions, and have left it in the hands
> of Dr. Schoen and MO.  I'm perfectly open to a respectful
> discussion. But you have insulted my intelligence, my maturity and
> my motives and accused me of being the racist (why is that always
> the ultimate argument when someone is defending a questionable
> topic: "It must all be in _your_ mind"?), and that makes me mad.

Good!  This is especially appropriate for something originating on the
Klingon list, as one thing that impressed me about the fictional
Klingon culture was that it treats anger as a productive tool to open
up discussion.  (See the mention in _The Klingon Way_ of how Curzon
Dax walked out of an important speech specifically to anger the
Klingon giving that speech.)

> Listen, bub, any white American who claims to be beyond race is
> living in a self-deluded dream world.  When you go off on the
> stupidity of the "niggardly" firing, you reveal your own
> biases. What could be more arrogant or condescending than for a

Which biases?  My biases against stupidity (a word which you yourself
just used, so I won't worry about defending it)?  I feel that
stupidity is a spreading evil that _must_ be actively resisted instead
of catered to.

Almost all of society bases its new knowledge on its previous
assumptions.  As this type of behavior occurs, a new thought becomes
ingrained in people's minds: "If a word sounds bad, it is bad."  This
is a very dangerous thought.

I think I mentioned Newspeak in my previous post.  The basis of
Orwell's _1984_ was that those in power were removing the ability to
express or even think things they didn't approve of by progressively
removing abstract concepts from the general vocabulary.

> white person to tell black people how they "should" feel!  I suggest

You're right, of course, and that is one of the things that
consistently makes me angry.  I _don't_ care how they feel.  If they
are pleased/offended/indifferent, so be it.  I only care when they
decide to remove a perfectly good word from the dictionary for the
simple reason that it sounds like another word.

The simple fact is that human language (and Klingon, apparently)
operates on a basis that can rather easily be reduced to some
mathematical parameters.  First, consider that there are only a
certain number of one-syllable sounds.  Second, notice that words of
variable syllables are allowed.  Third, note the fact that we don't
seem to like saying incredibly long words, for the perfectly good
reason that they waste time.

I don't know how many unique sounds there are, but for the sake of
argument, let's say that there are 100.  That means that any word can
be reduced to a base-100 number.  Here are two words (in a fictional
language) that I have taken the liberty of converting to Arabic
numerals..

11/76/46/10/84/29/65
11/76/46

Are these words at all related?  They both start with 11/76/46, but
no.  One means "fluffy baby duck", and the other means "nuclear bomb".

Now, still assuming 100 unique sounds, and arbitrarily deciding that
people don't like to say words more than, say, 5 syllables, removing
only the two syllables "nig-ger" from appearing consecutively would
remove [playing with calculator] would seem to remove about 2% of the
available words from use.  (I'm not a linguist, so my math is probably
way off, but the fact is that a non-trivial number of words would be
disqualified.)

Now consider how many other offensive words there are.  Also don't
forget foreign words.  (The example of the Vietnamese "phuc" seems
particularly appropriate here.)

> you do some self-education.  Try reading, for example, the book
> "It's the Little Things", or any one of many good books that have

[putting it on my list of Things to Do]

> appeared recently.  I don't claim to be perfect, but I have made it
> my task over the last few years to try to get some feel for the
> black experience in America.  It's been a real eye-opener, and it
> hasn't been easy or comfortable.
> 
> Obviously, what I wrote has touched a nerve in you.  I suggest you
> ask yourself why it's such a touchy one.

Because I like nuances of meaning, and I enjoy the beauty of a diverse
language.  Both of these are being stripped away as we, as a society,
rush toward a future where complexity is _assumed_ to be suspect.
Take the Bush/Gore debates, for example.  An study in the newspaper
linked the public favorite to times when he gave much shorter answers.
I assume that made him seem decisive and confident, and when the other
bothered to go into detail, that made him seem to be hiding something.
This attitude doesn't seem right to me.

As a final note, I was not seriously accusing you of being racist.  It
was intended to show by example the ridiculousness of jumping to such
conclusions.  Assumptions like that can always be made and prove
nothing.

-- 
vsync
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