Return-Path: Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.21.1 #21.19) id ; Mon, 1 Jun 92 12:58 EDT Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore 2/8/91) id AA01795; Mon, 1 Jun 92 12:10:28 EDT Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA15006; Mon, 1 Jun 92 12:08:00 -0400 Message-Id: <9206011608.AA15006@relay1.UU.NET> Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 8962; Mon, 01 Jun 92 12:06:54 EDT Received: by UGA (Mailer R2.07) id 7525; Mon, 01 Jun 92 12:06:18 EDT Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1992 11:40:49 EDT Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Subject: Re: acorns to ducks X-To: Lojban List , conlang To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann Status: RO X-Status: X-From-Space-Date: Mon Jun 1 12:58:43 1992 X-From-Space-Address: cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN nik posted the following to sci.lang: > Perhaps this would be more appropriately posted to an > alt.something group, but ... > > One of my students recently suggested that she had heard > of a word (and forgotten it) which meant "the process by > which an acorn falls into the water and becomes a duck." > Since she could not suggest the word, i had no way to > verify the truth of this... 2 questions: > > 1> Has anyone heard of this particular (alleged :) word? > > 2> Considering that a>science is *always* coining new > words and b>science is regularly proving itself to have > been in error, there should be many words which have had > value and no longer do. The odds seem good that some of > these words will be (will have been) rather humourous. > Can anyone suggest any of these pseudo-scientific > un-words?? I suggest that an appropriate Lojban word would be: cindytsidatkyborbi'oru'e For conlang subscribers, that breaks down as: cindy-tsi-datky-bor-bi'o-ru'e glossed as oak seed duck (hyphen) become process which the rules of Lojban grouping parenthesize as: ((oak seed) (duck become)) process -- cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban