From @uga.cc.uga.edu:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Thu Sep 24 11:50:24 1992 Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Thu, 24 Sep 1992 11:50:20 -0400 Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 8921; Thu, 24 Sep 92 11:49:05 EDT Received: by UGA (Mailer R2.08 PTF008) id 3475; Thu, 24 Sep 92 11:49:04 EDT Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1992 11:48:23 -0400 Reply-To: "Mark E. Shoulson" Sender: Lojban list From: "Mark E. Shoulson" Subject: TECH.CHALLENGE: Pangram (was: Letters ...) X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: "Dr. C.D. Wright"'s message of Thu, 24 Sep 1992 16:06:31 BST Status: RO X-Status: Message-ID: >Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1992 16:06:31 BST >From: "Dr. C.D. Wright" >Just quickly, although longer than the others, I prefer ... > pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs. You can, of course, see where this is going. I'm surprised there hasn't been an effort already. Here comes the quest for the lojban pangram. Guidelines, for my money, should be: - no cmene or le'avla. Cop-out. - all lojban symbols except _,_ (which only happens in cmene and le'avla) must appear (not counting such optionals as _;_ or _:_, but counting _._, even though it's optional. _._ may only be placed at a *required* pause, though.) - Must be grammatical utterance. - no fair using zoi or lo'u/le'u to throw in nonsense to get tough letters. - no experimental/unknown cmavo, of course. - Desiderata: - should be a bridi, not bare sumti or string of exclamations. - should not have sumti in undefined places, if possible (e.g. nothing in the sixth place of {prenu} or whatnot, even though that parses). - should have some sort of comprehensible meaning, though it may be nonsense (i.e. the meaning needn't be reasonable, but it should be capable of being understood in some fashion). - should be as short as possible. - shouldn't use letterals just to get letters in cheaply. In fact, avoid letterals if you can, except maybe to get {y}. - lujvo should be used sparingly, and if used, should make sense somehow. You can get {y} using hesitation or letterals, but don't turn down an otherwise good sentence because of a lujvo. The desiderata are roughly in order of importance. I'd imagine it's a little easier to find *a* pangram in lojban than in English, although finding a *good* one (where "good" is defined something like above) isn't easy in almost any language. Have fun with it! ~mark