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To: lojban@egroups.com
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From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@lojban.org>
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Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 23:05:12 -0400
Subject: Re: [lojban] centripetality: subset vs component
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At 01:38 AM 05/13/2000 +0200, Thorild Selen wrote:
>Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) writes:
>  > Not likely if we are talking dates. If the listener only wants the 
> century,
>  > then giving the date to any greater significance is drowning him in
>  > irrelevance.
>
>This brings up another interesting question; how should you specify
>a century? In English, you usually say "the 18:th century" where a
>Swede would say "the 1700:s". I admit that the second version is
>somewhat ambigous, since it could possibly be intended to mean only
>the years 1700-1709, but, on the other hand, the n:th century style
>seems kind of off by one, and therefore causes confusion among those
>who aren't used to it; also, it doesn't look a bit like how you talk
>about decades in any language that I know, and to be consistent with
>that style you'd possibly have to consider talking about, for example,
>the 171:th decade.
>Does anyone have a good suggestion for how to talk about centuries
>and decades in lojban?

It just so happens ...

We thought of that one, and there is a "non-specific number" tu'o and a 
"typical number" no'o corresponding to sumti placeholders zo'e and 
zu'i.  So pazetu'otu'o is the 1700s.  The 18th century is of course le 
pabimoi ke nanca panonomei  (or ctona'a).

lojbab
----
lojbab                                             lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                    703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:                 http://www.lojban.org


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