A Literary Classic, Once Again in My Library

This

Saturday, Wendy

and I went to the Book City warehouse sale and made out

like bandits, netting about a dozen books for less than CDN$100. I

snagged:

• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s

  Court by Mark Twain (a great story, whose

  premise got borrowed and mangled by a number of tv shows and

  movies)

• The Confusion by

  Neal Stephenson (continuing the Baroque Cycle, which started with Quicksilver,

  which I

  got for free)

• Pattern

  Recognition by William Gibson (Never got around

  to reading it, no idea why)

• What Should I Do With My

  Life? by Po Bronson (I enjoyed his earlier

  book,

  The Nudist on the Late

  Shift, and hey, now’s as good a time as any for

  a little self-check)

  …and finally…

• The Klingon

  Dictionary by Marc Okrand.

George

gave me The Klingon

Dictionary

back during our days at Crazy Go

Nuts University. A few months later,

Rob

MacDougall,

who needed a copy for his linguistics class (remember,

the Klingon language is a real language designed by a linguist),

borrowed it from me and never returned it. I am pleased to have this

masterpiece again and look forward to peppering my conversation with

gems such as:

• Ross, DuSaQ vumghzchwIj Sopta;

  targwIj

  Ross, the targ ate my weekly report.

• veQDuj’oH

  Dujllj’e’

  Your ship is a garbage scow.

• choSuvchugh ‘oy’lIj

  Daghur neH

  Struggling only makes it hurt more.

Here’s a little tip: Klingon sentences sound even better

when punctuated with a hearty “beeeyotch!”

When we paid for the books, the cashier, who was sporting the classic

nerd grrrl uniform, took one look at the book and said

“Sweet! I was

jumping for joy when I found out we had this book in stock. Enjoy

it!”

I shall. Qapla’!