As usual f= or English, the "It's all Greek to me" gets its boost from Shakespeare (Julius Caesar in the discussion abo= ut JC thrice refusing the crown), but during various situations other versi= ons have been popular: "It's all Dutch to me", "You might as well be talkin= g Hottentot" and so on. The Shakespeare case has originally an anti-e= litist component, too (couldn't use plain old Latin, could he), which furth= ers the plot. But the general pattern of blaming incomprehension on k= nown of but unintelligible language is pretty general. Ithkuil (I'm n= ever sure I spell it right) certainly qualifies. But, of course, succ= essful metaphors rely on common cultural ties and -- despite the widespread= pattern -- these may be lacking here. The hearer may not know about Ithkuil or of it fabled (but real) complexity or may not recognize t= hat what is being talked about is clearly NOT a specimen of Ithkuil (there = was a cartoon once of a person confronted with some classic Greek inscripti= on and dismissing it by saying it is all Greek to him). We can, of co= urse, mark the usage as non-literal and force another (but what other?) rea= ding. But that really does go against the whole idea of a metaphor an= d makes Lojban out to be the kind of narrow, literal, robotic language that= external critics take it to be (even Spock had a sense of humor, though a = rather elusive one).

<= span style=3D"font-weight:bold;">From: selpa'i <seladwa@gmx.de>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Se= nt: Thursday, July 26, 2012 8:04 AM
Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: It's Greek to me

Am 26.07.2012 06:58, schrieb Gleki Arxokuna:
> I understood the joke.= pe'i metaphorical expressions are possible in Lojban but must be clearly d= efined
> to prevent culture-specific misunderstanding.

If you = define a metaphor that way, it's not really a metaphor anymore. You only ge= t the full effect if .itkuil means the language and then say things like {x= u di'u .itkuile} to express your confusion. Of course metaphors are fine, a= nd when they are not obvious, you can mark them with pe'a.

> In t= he Netherlands and Russia they say "It's Chinese to me" in such situations.=

In Germany, people say "das kommt mir spanisch vor" =3D "this seems= spanish to me" to exress not-understanding or that something is odd. Using= foreign languages in such metaphors is common all over the planet, so usin= g .itkuil (or any other non-lojban language, even though the comical effect= is greater with .itkuil, it being another conlang and known for its complexity) will do the job. Again, use pe'a or zo'o when you aren't sure = people will get it.

mu'o mi'e la selpa'i

-- pilno zo le xu .i= lo dei bangu cu se cmene zo lojbo .e nai zo lejbo

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