Date: Thu, 13 Nov 1997 23:00:20 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199711140400.XAA03238@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: Ironic Use of Attitudinals X-To: jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR X-cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan Status: O X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1822 X-From-Space-Date: Thu Nov 13 23:00:31 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU > It's ironical that you would fight irony with... irony. If you mock someone >by taking their words at face value when you know that they meant >something else, then you're using a form of irony yourself. You're >feigning misunderstanding. Is that kind of irony approved of? >(If the misunderstanding is real, what is the source of the delight in >taking the incorrect usage literally?) Well sometimes the misunderstanding is real. Because of my rather poor skills in the language, I neither can follow irony nor many kinds of Lojbanic grammatical errors in spoken form. This is my limitation perhaps, but my repsonse to it has been to come up with the easiest fix, and then to take the result literally. Quite often, the result is quite hilarious. Since I have never run into a Lojabn speaker except perhaps Nick who was good enough at the language to speak it fluently and accurately and also be skilled enough to try irony, I would be more prone to assume an "ironic" attitudinal to be either an error or malglico, and both tickle my funny bone. ( I try to be kind to a beginner who uses an attitudinal that is opposite of what he really wants, but most anyone with real skill in the language, my reaction would be zo'o you said quite the opposite of what you really intended. You must feel happy that you flunked the test! I'' betthe teachers love you. Not! lojbab ---- lojbab lojbab@access.digex.net Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: ftp.access.digex.net /pub/access/lojbab or see Lojban WWW Server: href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/" Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.