Message-Id: <199308190913.AA17425@eli.CS.YALE.EDU>
Date:         Thu, 19 Aug 1993 10:09:07 +0100
Reply-To: Colin Fine <C.J.Fine@BRADFORD.AC.UK>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU>
From: Colin Fine <C.J.Fine@BRADFORD.AC.UK>
Subject:      Re: smoking
To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
Status: O

Bob says:
+++++++++++>
I don't see that "using" a drug is without a purpose, and "boredom
relieving" and "hunger satisfying" seem like very good 'purposes',
especially if you are aware of them.  In my 12 months of classes
associated with a diet program, there is considerable concentration on
'why you eat', and being aware of why when you do so, so as to avoid
eating merely out of unconscious habit.

This suggests that the underlying question is whether there can be a
goal/purpose for something if the person doing so is not consciously
undertaking said goal or purpose.  I could live with that argument
against tobacco-use or chemical-use, but perhaps this can be accounted
for with "tcaci" - tobacco-habit-use or chemical-habit-use.  (Use tenses
to distinguish between an individual instance of this, and the multiple
occasions that a habit suggests.

If there truly is no identifiable purpose, or if you don't like to
suggest that there is, I suggest "lifri":  tobacco-burn-experience, or
"gasnu":  tobacco-burn-agent.  For generalized smoking, you could use
smoke-breathe (which it turns out is what JCB put in L4, not that this
is a recommendation %^); smoke-do for JCB is to preserve meat by smoking
it), with the substance being smoked as a modifier or as a place, as you
prefer, but I've heard that one difference between the various types of
smoking is whether you inhale or not, so you may have to search farther:
smoke-experience smoke-selzdile.
>+++++++++++++

I'm not arguing about whether there actually is a purpose, but about the
appropriate places for the everyday term. If you say that the normal word
for 'smoke' should be something that includes/ implies a purpose, then
I shall ask why you left the purpose place out of 'citka' and 'pinxe'.

Of course all these acts have a purpose (as does every zu'e nalsnuti),
and when we need to we can talk about the purpose - in the context of
your diet clinic, you will certainly want to talk about your
jai te zu'e citka - but in other contexts I want to talk about the act
of eating - citka - without considering a purpose.
I demand the same possibilities for smoking.

On can citka, zukte lo nu citka, or lifri lo nu citka.
In the same way, I want (others!) to be able to
sigdamva'u, zukte lo nu sigdamva'u (or sigypli) or lifri lo nu sigdamva'u (or si
 gli'i)

Colin