Appropriate phrase for a beer mug

[penfold]

I'm making a Christmas present for a friend.  I've got the Klingon Empire symbol etched on a beer mug and thought a Klingon phrase (in Klingon, obviously) would look good on there.  I know Klingons have sayings about drinking, but what?  Also, would it be appropriate to have something like that on the same mug as the symbol for the Empire, or would it be better to have a phrase about the supremacy of Klingons, or a more general saying?  Please give me some suggestions.

For artistic reasons, I'd like the words to be in Klingon script.  There are lots of resources showing which letters correspond to what in Klingon script, but I'd like to know if there are any tricks to it I should know about.  If I write Qapla'  do I just see which letters are which and use the Klingon script, or is there more to it than that?

Also, if I decide to put his name and date maybe on the bottom of the mug, I'd like to do that in Klingon as well.  His name is Jordan.  I figured in Klingon, that would be spelled "jorDIn."  Am I off?  Does this word mean something awful in Klingon?  I found jor means "explode," so I wanted to make sure his name didn't actually translate to something - or nothing bad, anyway.  To write the date, can I just use the numbers and write "2006," or is there a proper, Klingon way to do it?

I'd be very grateful for any help or suggestions.

[Kesvirit]

A worthy gift indeed!

I can only find four sayings about drinking, all of them from The Klingon Way:

{tlhutlhmeH HIq ngeb qaq law’ bIQ qaq puS.}
“Drinking fake ale is better than drinking water.” TKW p.35

{bIjatlh ‘e’ yImev. yItlhutlh!}
“Stop talking! Drink!” TKW p.87

{yIlop! wa’leS chaq maHegh!}
“Celebrate! Tomorrow we may die!” TKW p.153

{HIq DaSammeH tach yI’el.}
“To find ale, go into a bar.” TKW p.181

I will admit that all of these leave a great deal to be desired, and recommend that you come up with something yourself that will hold personal signifigance between you and your friend.

{jorDIn} sounds like a good transliteration. I cannot find any sort of listing for {DIn}, so as far as I can tell the name doesn’t mean anything in thlIngan Hol.

There is a scripted version of the TKW sayings listed here; I cannot advise you on script usage or dating, and call upon more experienced Klingonists for assistance.

[qoSagh]

I think Stop Talking, Drink! is a great saying for the mug.

As for what script to use there are many, some of which work with Klingon words and some of which work with English words, so choose your script appropriately. As for dates, there are many options as well. Some of the various Klingon fonts include numbers some do not. Within fandom there was always a convention of converting the actual date, into a pseudo stardate with the format of YYMM.DD, for instance today would be 0612.18 or this Christmas would be 0612.25. This worked much better with years that didn't start with zero, but might transliterate well (or would that be transnumerate?). Basically since this is an original work of art, there are few rules that must be followed. I would think that the rule about nostrils scattered all over the place for poetry would extend at least in attitude towards all works of art.

Good luck with the mug.

[penfold]

Kesvirat:  thanks for the suggestions and the link - that was exactly the kind of thing I needed to look at.

qoSagh:  thank you for the tip about dates.  I'm embarrased to say even though I've seen those psuedo-stardates all over, I never caught on.

Originally, I'd thought to make something up myself to put on the mug, but then I started to like the idea of a traditional saying.  I'm still torn between "Stop talking! Drink!" and "Celebrate!  Tomorrow we may die!"  Either way I think it'll look pretty good. 

Thanks again.