From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Sun Nov 12 18:56:24 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Sun, 12 Nov 2006 18:56:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1GjRzQ-0004Cz-2h for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Sun, 12 Nov 2006 18:56:04 -0800 Received: from rlpowell by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1GjRzP-0004Cs-JP for lojban-list@lojban.org; Sun, 12 Nov 2006 18:56:03 -0800 Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2006 18:56:03 -0800 To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: "la" in names Message-ID: <20061113025603.GV17734@chain.digitalkingdom.org> Mail-Followup-To: lojban-list@lojban.org References: <20061109041814.GE23121@chain.digitalkingdom.org> <4553388D.6030007@lojban.org> <20061110011026.GD23121@chain.digitalkingdom.org> <455433BA.2050601@lojban.org> <4554AF04.60500@kli.org> <45556167.10201@lojban.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <45556167.10201@lojban.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.13 (2006-08-11) From: Robin Lee Powell X-archive-position: 13075 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list On Sat, Nov 11, 2006 at 12:36:39AM -0500, Bob LeChevalier wrote: > Mark E. Shoulson wrote: > >Bob LeChevalier wrote: > > > >>Robin Lee Powell wrote: > >> > >>No. All I have admitted is that certain kinds of ad hoc word > >>formation in the process of translation are prone to error. > >>Word making in translation is a major part of the language now. > >>In the long run, it will be very minor. Ad-hoc word making is > >>entirely orthogonal to speaking the language correctly. > > > >Experience would seem to indicate that this is not so. People > >use a LOT of ad-hoc names in ad-hoc conversations on IRC and in > >emails here. > > And 99% of us are still thinking in English or our native > language, and translating when we do so. And because of where we > are coming from, we tend to want to Lojbanize everything. The 1% of us who *do* produce Lojban without thinking in English and translating are *all* telling you that the la rule sucks. Doesn't that cause you to stop and consider that you might be wrong? You can either accept that people who know the language better than you are right about this, or not; I will not budge on this, period, and nothing you've said has moved me one iota towards your position. I don't see that there's any use to us discussing it further. I do want to point one thing out, though: > Since conversational usage often includes mistakes, I don't place > a lot of import on whether some feature causes mistakes, > especially when the alternative approach of mandatory pauses is > likely to be equally violated by Lojban speakers. The *kind* of mistake is different, though, in very important ways. The current rule leads to *mistakes that still parse and make sense*, but in which the meaning is drastically altered. The pause rule leads to mistakse that almost never parse. This is an immensely important difference. If it is true that people are going to screw up the pause rule as often as the la rule (and I utterly disagree with that, by the way), then shouldn't we use the rule that leads to the least damaging effect from the expected mistakes? See the second paragraph of the third point in http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=The%20Case%20Against%20LA for details on what I mean here. I expect this will not change your mind at all; indeed, you may already be aware of this issue. if so, you probably shouldn't bother responding, as I think we've said everything that can reasonably be said. I think the la rule will *destroy* audio-visual isomorphism. I think this is equivalent to destroying the language. Nothing you've said has given me the slightest cause to re-consider, so I will fight it with all of my might, for however long it takes. -Robin -- http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/ Reason #237 To Learn Lojban: "Homonyms: Their Grate!" Proud Supporter of the Singularity Institute - http://singinst.org/ To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.