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Date:         Fri, 17 Sep 1993 10:56:54 -0400
Reply-To: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
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From: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject:      clitoris
X-To:         lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
Status: RO
X-Status: 

> From: Matthew Faupel <matthew@CPDAPO.TELE.NOKIA.FI>
> In-Reply-To:  Mr Andrew Rosta's message of Mon, 9 Aug 1993 18:19:41 +0100
>
> NN= Nick Nicholas <nsn@MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU>
> AR= Andrew Rosta <ucleaar%UCL.AC.UK@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
>
> NN: vibypinji       clitoris (I *hope* there's a better term for it)
> AR: _lagypinji_ (vlagi zei pinji) would be a start at a better term.
>
> Shame on you both!  Though the latter description may be anatomically
> correct, not even Esperanto goes as far as calling it a "penino" :-) If
> you want to be strictly descriptive you could have:
>
>     lagnirbakfu
> or  lagypunli
>
> or, getting slightly more elliptical:
>
>     lagyga'e
> or  lagselkukte (or does it have to be lagyselkukte?)
>
> Has anyone actually queried the owner of one of these items as to their
> preference?

I just asked one (nora) - she didn't like the elliptical ones and wasn't
thrilled with any of them.  Given that we covered testicles/ovaries with
naknyganti fetsyganti, it would be parallel to make pinji the
gender-neutral (or non-spoecific) term that would be used most often,
and use nakny- or fetsy- as appropriate when it is actually necessary to
make a distinction.  This will be rare unless you are talking biology or
generic properties (not the norm for this topic, i suspect).  If you say
"le ko'a pinji", and you know who ko'a is, then you know what type of
apparatus is involved.

The important thing then becomes to make it clear to people that one
should not add the female specifier in circumstances where one would not
correspondingly add the male specifier. i.e. if context tells you which
it is, add neither.  Our problem then in unlike Esperanto, because we DO
then use a sexually unmarked root.  Describing this root in English or
other languages, though, remains tricky.

Should I make pinji gender-neutral?

lojbab