Anonymous <anyone@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>In article <6t1fd3ld1ruupljnaqmvqlget0ekuktdb1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, Dana Nutter \
>deinx nxtxr <li_sasxsekREMOVETHIS@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>> I know i've mentioned this before, but try downloading
>> Lojban's gismu list from their site. They are the best source
>> of semantic primes that I've found so far. The schema is very
>> well thought out.
>
>They don't have a word for "s****ts" -- reflecting the geekiness of
>people who are attracted to lojban -- look at your local TV newscast or
>newspaper to verify that "s****ts" is a prime concept -- what other gaps
>exist in their semantic web due to their _extreme_ nerdiness?
Actually, nerdy or not, we did indeed consider a gismu for "s****ts" in
Lojban. The problem is that we could not figure out a meaning that
was culturally neutral, and which was distinct from "play" (kelci) and
"compete" (jivna). Some s****ts are in fact not competitions, and some
play is not "s****ts", and it is arguable that s****ts are not always
mere "play". But what are the distinctive qualities?
"Is chess a s****t?" is a long-time controversial question. The
International Olympic Committee considers the games of chess and
bridge to be s****ts, as do some units of the EU, but Americans tend
not to think so. And if chess is a s****t, what about other board
games like Monopoly? And you can then go on and examine role playing
games which are as often as not cooperative rather than competitive,
but in live-action gaming might be quite physical.
The boundary between "s****ts" and "games" and to some extent "toys"
becomes so fuzzy, we decided to let concepts in that semantic field be
expressed using compounds of those other words.
The main use for such a root word would have been to make compounds
for the names of major s****ts. Of course, such compounds would have
been dominated by the prejudices of Americans and other English
speakers. We need only consider the situation of "football", and then
try to figure out how to distinguish baseball, cricket, la crosse, jai
alai, and field and ice hockey from each other and from soccer, and
once quickly decides that it might just be better to borrow the words
for various games from the cultures that spawned them (and no, I don't
mean "jock culture" %^).
>Never forget the cartoon at http://xkcd.com/191/
-- lojbanists are so
>geeky that even most geeks won't have anything to do with them. Drink
>their kool-aid at your own risk.
The cartoon of course reflects the misconception that Lojban was
designed to be something like the Star Trek "Vulcan"; it wasn't.
There is no problem speaking ambiguously in Lojban, and speaking
nonsense is quite easy (it may be logical nonsense in some sense, but
nonsense nonetheless). (Lojban has perhaps the most elaborate system
for expressing emotions in language that exists, which also violates
the stereotype of "logic".)
lojbab
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