From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Mon Dec 31 13:47:51 2007 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Mon, 31 Dec 2007 13:47:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.68) (envelope-from ) id 1J9SU9-0008NU-EF for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 13:47:51 -0800 Received: from squid17.laughingsquid.net ([72.32.93.144]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.68) (envelope-from ) id 1J9SU4-0008NL-20 for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 13:47:47 -0800 Received: (qmail 30634 invoked by uid 48); 31 Dec 2007 13:47:34 -0800 Received: from c-24-63-92-33.hsd1.ma.comcast.net (c-24-63-92-33.hsd1.ma.comcast.net [24.63.92.33]) by webmail.ixkey.info (Horde MIME library) with HTTP; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 13:47:34 -0800 Message-ID: <20071231134734.tgxeg0ra8gsoowko@webmail.ixkey.info> Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 13:47:34 -0800 From: mungojelly@ixkey.info To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org Subject: [lojban-beginners] the black hole of keyworditis, was Re: confusing gismus References: <2f91285f0712300908l379651c5o91cde87e8b81960e@mail.gmail.com> <20071230110938.lvwyvup5kwsc04g4@webmail.ixkey.info> <925d17560712301407j353e0f17j264267c967937b91@mail.gmail.com> <20071230144732.4i70hzzqosk4ogcs@webmail.ixkey.info> <925d17560712310340j7a5cdf55l639a87dc1afd6c59@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <925d17560712310340j7a5cdf55l639a87dc1afd6c59@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; DelSp="Yes"; format="flowed" Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis User-Agent: Internet Messaging Program (IMP) H3 (4.1.4) X-Spam-Score: 1.8 X-Spam-Score-Int: 18 X-Spam-Bar: + X-archive-position: 101 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: mungojelly@ixkey.info Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-list: lojban-beginners Quoting Jorge Llambías : > At least that's the theory. In practice I think most people just use {skapi} > even though {pilka} is wanted because {skapi} has keyword "skin" and > {pilka} has keyword "crust". I am determined that this chronic keyworditis be cured! doi Xorxes .iosai, doi Lojbab .iosai: You've both just poured some energy into these gismu here on this list, and I'm going to do my best to remember, retain and build upon that knowledge in my growing comprehension of Lojban. The fact of the matter, however, is that aside from the few people who are here paying attention, this conversation is falling into a black hole, never to be seen again. You've just shed a considerable amount of light on several gismu, but unless that knowledge is somehow made accessible, the next generation of Lojban learners are still going to learn from the mablykeywords. There are social and philosophical problems which hinder the formation of easy consensus on semantics, but above & beyond that natural difficulty we also have pe'i an inexcusable lack of organization. I would like to propose a rudimentary first step: Let's coin a lujvo goi ko'a which means very specifically "a conversation clarifying the meaning of a gismu", and then let's label these conversations with ko'a every time. That way you could search for ko'a together with a gismu, and get back all the previous conversations, so that at the very least we wouldn't be starting completely from scratch where we ought to be standing on our own shoulders. In my work with Cniglic I am attempting to carve a narrow but deep piece out of this puzzle. I've chosen a relatively tiny set of words, so with continued attention [.a'asairo'ebu'ocu'i] and especially if I have help from other people [.a'osairo'a] I'll be able to make a body of accumulated knowledge and educational material for at least this subset. I'm going to post [.ai] to the Cniglic lj community, for instance, the gist of the recent useful comments [.i'o] I got about zo .o'o, so those clarifications will be rescued from the black hole. From the perspective of Lojban as a whole, though, that is somewhat peripheral. What's centrally important is the meanings of the gismu. That's the heart & soul of the language; everything else is just an empty frame until it's filled with the semantic qualities of those words. Right now the heart & soul of Lojban is trickling constantly down the black hole, and [pe'isai] it's time for us to plug the drain. mu'o mi'e doi bret.