Date: Wed, 3 Aug 1994 00:12:18 -0400
From: Logical Language Group <lojbab>
Message-Id: <199408030412.AA27533@access1.digex.net>
To: ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk
Subject: Re: current cmene project
Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net, lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
Status: RO

UC> > Since I don;t want to tie up all fu'ivla space with namess-as-they-are,
UC> > giving rpeference to thoise the existing skewed set of Lojbanists think a
UC> > important, this would be unwise as a general policy.  
UC> 
UC> Fuhivla space is enormous. What else would you want to call "tcadrlondonu"
UC> but London (England)? London Ontario? - Make that "tcadrlondono". 

Yeah.  And what do you do when you find that there are more than 5 such
places with that name in the world.  (A friend of mine from the little known
town of Montrose, Michigan, once checked and found that some 30-odd states
of the US had a town or other geographic feature worth putting on a common
atlas that used that name.  I presume there are more in Canada and the UK.
So how do you come up with 30-odd variations on a name to get unique
fu'ivla?  And why bother, when you can arbitraily add a conventional place
to each one that is a "location", or make some other adjustment.

I have no doubt that many cities, probably including London, will have usage
eventually to warrant choosing a fu'ivla.  I would rather let usage dictate it, even if you and I feel that it is inevitable.  At this point of course, we 
have people that do not yet accept the cultural gismu, and Ivan D. thinks that
all place names should be left in la'o text. London England text. delimited
quotes form, which is a type 1 fu'ivla.

I dfon;t want to make technical decisions regarding names and fu'ivla
for this first dictionary - just give some useful examples that will a)
defuse the cultural gismu question by proving that we can handle non-cultural-
gismu cultures as needed and b) shoe people how to make names and fu'ivla
if they need to.

lojbab