elisem

It's amazing how much the strangest subjects can improve one's day. After venting (in a restricted post) about some difficult medical stuff and how grumpish and underslept it was leaving me, I had a good telephone conversation with a far-away friend, and then wound up having a whee of a conversation with Mr. Ford about translating certain phrases into Klingon.



What I posted elsewhere:
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I just asked Mr. Ford, and he said that "passive" would probably translate to one word meaning "waiting for an opening."

As for passive-aggressive, he said that Klingons wouldn't have passive-aggressiveness in their psyche, but they might recognize it in others. And he said it might be "how you fight back when circumstances do not allow you to do so directly." (He pointed out that being sneaky is OK. "Surviving as a warrior race does not mean you charge in like an outraged bull every time, because you're not always the meanest son-of-a-bitch on the block.")

And then we got deeper into semiotics and mindset. And honor, and how honorable is different from fair. And how it's possible that, to a Klingon, someone who lets their goat be got by passive-aggressive behavior is just demonstrating that that was an appropriate tactic to be used on them.

And then he said, "But it's not like I am an expert on this, you know." (I believe he meant Klingons.)

Seems to me that part of the dissonance between Terran and Klingon thought on this topic is that Terrans hold that someone being passive-aggressive is dishonorable because they are fighting while pretending not to fight, but that Klingons believe everybody is fighting all the time, so they rather expect something, whether it's this or something else, and are prepared to counterstrike. (And then I asked Mike if this gets into the topic of the Perpetual Game, and he said that he thought so, yes. And then we talked about long-term strategies and survival, for which passive-aggressiveness holds some dubious prospects in some scenarios... and not in others.)
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So that's my summary of the conversation, and it was fun. And I am feeling a lot better now, mood-wise at least, if not in arm and head and furrowed brow. And it is a good thing to be laughing with Mr. Ford.