From @uga.cc.uga.edu:lojban@cuvmb.bitnet Tue Jun 27 00:54:52 1995 Received: from punt2.demon.co.uk by stryx.demon.co.uk with SMTP id AA3633 ; Tue, 27 Jun 95 00:54:50 BST Received: from punt2.demon.co.uk via puntmail for ia@stryx.demon.co.uk; Mon, 26 Jun 95 23:07:07 GMT Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by punt2.demon.co.uk id aa00521; 27 Jun 95 0:06 +0100 Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 8866; Mon, 26 Jun 95 19:04:06 EDT Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UGA) by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 1890; Mon, 26 Jun 1995 19:04:06 -0400 Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 17:05:16 -0600 Reply-To: Chris Bogart Sender: Lojban list From: Chris Bogart Subject: Re: contracts in Lojban X-To: lojban@cuvmb.bitnet To: Iain Alexander Message-ID: <9506270006.aa00521@punt2.demon.co.uk> Status: R >> Actually, I rented an apartment for a couple months in downtown Kukbraun >> (the capital city of Lojbanistan). It was interesting reading over the >> rental agreement because the lojbani lawyers have an unusual style of >> writing. They fill in all places, and never use "zo'e". > >Do you have a copy, or at least a sample? What do they fill all the >places with? Every time they use {lo} they multiply the unfilled >places, because {lo broda} is {lo broda be zo'e bei zo'e bei zo'e...} Hmm, you're right. I guess, come to think of it, that that contract wasn't infinitely long, since I do remember it fitting in a finite file folder. I guess they must have just filled in more places than I am accustomed to seeing, and thereby acheived a greated degree of precision. But as the Great Seal of Lojbanisan reads: "the price of infinite precision is infinite verbosity". >Also, if the lawyers like to conceptualize things differently, like And >proposes, then they can have even more fun than in English, where concepts >are in some sense much more settled already. The courts have upheld standard conceptualizations which are to be assumed when reading standard contracts. Of course, even in Lojbani law there is eventually a layer of human judgement applied to the interpretation of things. But the amount of tortured verbiage necessary to constrain the range of reasonable human interpretations is somewhat less in Lojban than in English. >> (Unfortunately I didn't stay long in Kukbraun; I got fired from the coffee >> shop I was working at for speaking metaphorically to the customers :-) ) > >Was that le ckafybarja by any chance? There were some weird stories published >here about a guy who worked there, but I think it probably wasn't you. I doubt it was me, but you shouldn't believe everything you read anyway. Lojbanis seem particularly prone to talking about alternate universes as if they were the real one.