Date: Mon, 02 Jan 1995 17:27:42 -0800
From: Gerald Koenig <jlk@NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Goals
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Reply-to: Gerald Koenig <jlk@NETCOM.COM>
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pc said:

While I sympathize with the desire to get things in short in Lojban as in
English, I don't think it is going to happen all the time.


lojbab said:

But Lojban is not designed for optimized conciseness - it isn't anywhere
in our constellation of goals.

And you are fighting Cowan's oft-repeated maxim about the price of
infinite precision being infinite verbosity.

So, without going into this further, I don't agree with the goal.

But Lojban's tense structure probably exceeds that of any natlang in
total expressivity - the variety of tense concepts that can be
expressed briefly.  The fact that this means that some structures
aren't as brief as their more ambiguous English counterparts does not
bother us greatly.

lojbab

*********************************************************************

djer responds:

I predict that the problem will not go away. I think it is unrealistic
to have awkward and prolix expressions for frequently used concepts. As
you know, the reason some expressions are short is their high
frequency.  So long as lojban design ignores this law of language it
will pay the price of disuse.  Even UNIX has its alias system.

Well, with pc, Cowan, and lojbab opposed, what else can I say?  I'm
beginning to miss jorge's support.

djer