From wetblu!uunet!marob.masa.com!cowan Wed Jun 6 07:46:10 1990 Return-Path: Received: by marob.masa.com (/\=-/\ Smail3.1.18.1 #18.7) id ; Wed, 6 Jun 90 07:46 EDT Received: by wetblu.hollander.com (/\=-/\ Smail3.1.16.1 #16.12) id ; Wed, 6 Jun 90 07:19 EDT Received: from cbmvax.UUCP by uunet.uu.net (5.61/1.14) with UUCP id AA19698; Wed, 6 Jun 90 03:58:11 -0400 Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore Jan 13 1990) id AA08457; Wed, 6 Jun 90 02:33:02 EDT Received: by snark.uu.net (smail2.3) id AA01896; 6 Jun 90 01:32:02 EDT (Wed) Received: from RUTGERS.EDU by uunet.uu.net (5.61/1.14) with SMTP id AA06537; Mon, 4 Jun 90 18:13:53 -0400 Received: from phri.UUCP by rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.3/3.06) with UUCP id AA13990; Mon, 4 Jun 90 17:31:06 EDT Received: by phri.UUCP (smail2.5) id AA16155; 4 Jun 90 17:25:32 EDT (Mon) Received: by marob.masa.com (/\=-/\ Smail3.1.18.1 #18.7) id ; Mon, 4 Jun 90 15:40 EDT Message-Id: From: wetblu!uunet!marob.masa.com!cowan (John Cowan) Subject: Yet another proposal, about "so'u" To: snark.uu.NET!lojban-list Date: Mon, 4 Jun 90 15:40:54 EDT X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL0] Status: RO A small proposal this time, for disambiguating "su'o": THE CURRENT SYSTEM: Currently, the cmavo "su'o" mostly means "at least", by default "at least one". It can also be used as a pseudo-digit to indicate that digits have been omitted, similar to the use of ellipsis in mathematics (distinct from non-mathematical ellipsis). For example, cipipavopamusosu'o = 3.14159.... PROPOSED CHANGE: Assign another cmavo for use as an ellipsis either on the left or the right side of numbers. "lo'o" is currently unassigned (as of JL12) and resembles the new "li'o" used for ellipsis within quotations. RATIONALE: The use of "at least" to mean "omitted digits" is derived from the idea of "at least one digit omitted". It seems to me that this is making "at least" do too much work. In addition, "su'o" can only be used in this sense to omit digits at the least-significant (right-hand) end. Yet we often want to omit digits at the left end as well; for example, this is the year '90. English orthography uses an apostrophe here rather than an ellipsis mark, but the idea is the same: one or more digits are omitted here, being understood in context. In this style, the year number would be pasosono, or lo'osono. In this particular case, no shortening would be achieved, but quite otherwise for astronomers using the Julian day system, whose base is 1 January 4173 B.C. (by the Gregorian calendar), and who must deal with seven-digit day numbers. -- cowan@marob.masa.com (aka ...!hombre!marob!cowan) e'osai ko sarji la lojban