>
> >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" %^).
>
I shouldn't, but I can't resist.
It's a s****t if it involves athleticism and some kind of method for
keeping score. If you can't look at the scoreboard and see who's
winning, then, as athletic as it might be, it's not a s****t. Sorry
figure skating. If you can tell who's winning, but there's no danger
of someone pulling a muscle or getting winded, then it's a game. Sorry
chess. Is that just too obvious?
Golf, yes, is a s****t. I doubt any of us have the athleticism needed
to hit a ball as well as Tiger Woods. Bowling, believe it or not, is a
s****t. It requires a certain amount of physical coordination, after
all, and I can always tell who's winning. Poker? Show me the needed
athleticism, and I'll let it in. Ice skating? Sure, just as soon as we
can figure out a way to tell who's winning.
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