May 10, 2003

vam 'oH rop

Today's Oregonian features the following story as the lead article in the Metro/NW section:

Multnomah County is looking for a Klingon interpreter -- just in case.
The county doesn't expect to be invaded by the alien warriors from "Star Trek" movies and TV series. But the office that treats county mental health patients wants to be prepared in case a client arrives in an emergency room gabbing in the galactic language.
"We have to provide information in all the languages our clients speak," says Jerry Jelusich, a procurement specialist for the county Department of Human Services, which serves some 60,000 mental health clients.

Apparently, the County would only have to pay for such an interpreter in the event one was actually needed.

Now, this all seems rather silly. Although I suppose it's not entirely implausible that a patient might show up one day refusing to speak anything but Klingon. And at least they aren't paying some Klingon translator to be on call. I'm not sure, however, why it's the top story in the Metro section.

Oh, and the headline above is Klingon for, "This is sick." I tried using this translator to come up with a Klingon word for "strange" or some similar word, but apparently there isn't one.

Posted at 01:17 PM | PermalinkComments (3) | TrackBacks (1)
More In Et Cetera

« Previous Next »

Comments (3)

  1. Leopoldo Marino on 12 May 2003

    I honestly do not believe this. I did a web search and can see it went out over an AP wire, then got picked up by newspapers everywhere.. but this simply does not jive. There must be some way to confirm this.

  2. The One True b!X on 12 May 2003

    Considering it was right there on the front of the Metro/NW section of The Oregonian, I'm sure we'd have heard by now if it were somehow untrue.

  3. alan@kli.org on 13 May 2003

    The AP story was picked up from the Oregonian. It got clipped a bit in the process, losing just enough of the original to make it a serious target of ridicule instead of a humorous piece.

    WARNING! Serious geekness to follow. Do not read if Trek-related skills offend you.

    Arggh, you used Joel Peter Anderson's Universal Translator Assistant, didn't you? It should come with a bright flashing neon warning sign explaining that it doesn't understand the first thing about Klingon grammar. :-)

    -vam this is a suffix, not a standalone word, so it has to be attached to a noun (like De' information). rop be sick is a verb all by itself, and doesn't act like an English adjective requiring an is along with it. And the word order in a Klingon sentence puts the subject after the verb.

    So while your headline is quickly understood by anyone who speaks both Klingon and English, rop De'vam would have been grammatically correct Klingon for This information is sick.

    Oh, there is a Klingon word for strange: Huj.

Trackbacks (1)

  1. Contingency Planning on 10 May 2003

    b!X picked up on Multnomah County's search for a qualified interpreter of Klingon, with Elvish on the horizon.