From: "Marc Okrand" [email protected]
Newsgroups: startrek.expertforum
Subject: Re: Marc Okrand
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 1998

[email protected] wrote ...
As I specified in my original post, the purpose of getting the phrase
was to incorporate it into a story I am writing. I do appreciate the
response and help, but everything I have gotten so far, while it may
be correct for conversational Klingon, does not fit the blank space I
have left in my story for it.

Klingon insults a federation officer in Klingon. Federation officer
ignores him. Klingon says to other klingons in Fed standard "He does not
even know when he has been insulted."
Federation officer: "I cannot be insulted by (a) ________________.

Seems to me that the phrase that best fills in the blank ("I cannot be
insulted by (a) _______") is the one suggested a while back by both SuStel
and Qermaq:

yIH ngaghwI'

(I'd leave the "a" in the English: "I cannot be insulted by a yIH
ngaghwI'.")

If this is translated as "one who mates with a tribble," perhaps it sounds
too formal or clinical (in English, not in Klingon) to function as a curse
or insult. If it's translated "tribble mater-wither" or something like
that, it has a somewhat better tone, but it's questionable English and
therefore lacks punch. But English isn't the issue here; Klingon is, and,
unless I'm missing the point, /yIH ngaghwI'/ should work. I trust that,
in the story, the Federation officer who utters the phrase is prepared for
what the Klingon may do next.