Message-Id: <199311121456.AB03217@eli.CS.YALE.EDU>
Date:         Fri, 12 Nov 1993 09:48:00 EST
Reply-To: protin@USL.COM
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU>
From: Art Protin <protin@USL.COM>
Subject:      Re: TECH: re'enai and the emotion classifiers (long)
To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
Status: RO

Folks,
    Private correspondance with lojbab jolted my memory.
I realize that he and I have gone around like this before
with a similar issue and with almost the exact underlying
causes.

My story about the common use of the term "Communist"
and the issue with "atheist" are both about the unacceptablity
of common (ab)use of English.

While I have no problem with "spiritual" and "sacrilege" as
English code words for lojban , neither is a good definition.

THERE IS THE ISSUE, and some other framework.

Much of the word lists are code words, like the fear/complaints
of the linguists, only in reverse.  The lojban words are not
code words for the English concepts, rather it is the English
words in the lists that are code words for the lojban.  Thus,
these angry debates spring up when:

1) Someone complains that an "English Code Word" does not line
    up with their understanding of the concept.  I skip over
    this part of the discussion because I know that the English
    words are code words and not real definitions.

2) Lojbab eventually gets mired down in discussions of the concept
    and his search for some English words that won't get
    misunderstood.  He sites common understandings of English
    words.

3) I read philisophical debates that I mistake for descriptions
    of the concepts to be expressed in lojban, and attack the
    abuse of English.  Lojbab is trying to find ways of expressing
    a concept, not for us (as I misconstrue it) but for those
    "more challenged" and is concerned with how they will react
    given the English (ab)usage to which they may have been exposed.

4) I "correct" lojbab's "terribly sloppy" definitions.

And around we go.


    I think that several things can be done to help prevent
these go rounds.  The most important of these is to insure
that all the English descriptions of the word lists make
clear that the English is not a definition for the lojban
but rather is a "code word".

    In this particular case, I think there is an opportunity
to drive home that the English in the lists are not definitions.
I think the word "sacrilege" is exceptionally wrong as the
polar opposite of re'e because it is the opposite of those
portions of the meaning of "spiritual" that are not part of
re'e.  In fact, there is probably NO GOOD ECW (English Code
Word) for the polar opposite of re'e.  That place in the word
list should be marked (with something like a *) to indicate
that English is so deficient that no English word could serve.


    thank you all,
    Arthur Protin