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Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2011 14:28:59 -0700 (PDT)
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Subject: [lojban] English
From: John Smith <thantophobia295@gmail.com>
To: lojban <lojban@googlegroups.com>
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I don't know about lojban.  I just don't know.  I mean, what kind of
language isn't even capitalized?  An unimportant one, that's what, or
at least that's what I learned in first grade.  Important things are
capitalized.

I don't know a lot about this language, but I think it's kind of
soulless.  Oh, yeah, I know, you've heard it all before, but the thing
Spock didn't realize was that being completely logical IS the best
thing to do, IF you account for emotions.  Marrying someone to find
out about their species?  That's about the least logical thing I've
ever heard.  You have to realize that there's more to things than just
cold, hard logic.

I think English is awesome.  All the other languages make quite a bit
of sense, but English, no, English is like the badass language.  It
doesn't conform to rules.  It makes no sense at all.  Like, for
example, a while ago I discovered that an alternate spelling for
"Medieval" is "Mediaeval."  How awesome is that?!?  Seriously, that's
so cool, when you spell it like that, it seems like you're actually
some mediaeval knight or something who spells things weird.

Who cares about unambiguity?  I love ambiguity.  Ambiguity is great.

And you know what else?  It has to do with the feeling of "support"
for words.  Like, instead of saying old, say olde, or colour instead
of color.  The modern words are all "new" and "chic," but they don't
have that supporting spurious letter to give them that English feel to
them.  It feels like the old words are heavy fortresses with
spuriousness that makes it strong and firm, but the moderns say,
"Hey!  We don't NEED those letters.  They're unnecessary.  Let's get
rid of 'em!"  So now, the words no longer feel strong and firm; now
they feel like they're hanging by a thread, supporting themselves, but
barely.

See what I did there??  I put a semicolon!  I love semicolons!
Whatever happened to semicolons?  Also, whatever happened to starting
questions with "whatever" instead of just "what?"  Or putting end
punctuation marks inside quotation marks even when it doesn't make
sense (technically proper grammar, actually)?  What fun is having no
punctuation?  No fun, that's what!  Punctuation is awesome!  Why would
you want to get rid of it?

One of the things I really don't like about lojban is that there are
no capital letters!  What is that?  I love capital letters.  And
what's more, I'm sure that if they DID use capital letters, they would
call them uppercase letters and abolish the word "capital!"  How lame
is that?!  Haven't you ever said to someone, "Capital day, isn't it?"
Sounds cool, don't it?

In conclusion, I think lojban has its advantages and disadvantages,
but really, do we really need it?  We already have perfectly good
languages.  I think people do this for fun, thinking, "Ha!  I've
removed tiny problems from language.  All the tiniest inconsistencies
have been eliminated."  I think the problem is that it's
reductionist.  That is all.

P.S.:  Whatever happened to "Yes! yes! yes!"?  Is that cool or what?

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