From a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com Fri Nov 02 01:14:30 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 2 Nov 2001 09:14:30 -0000 Received: (qmail 99929 invoked from network); 2 Nov 2001 09:14:30 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.167) by m5.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 2 Nov 2001 09:14:30 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mta02-svc.ntlworld.com) (62.253.162.42) by mta1.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 2 Nov 2001 09:14:29 -0000 Received: from andrew ([62.253.84.15]) by mta03-svc.ntlworld.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.00 201-229-121) with SMTP id <20011102035450.IUUZ5450.mta03-svc.ntlworld.com@andrew> for ; Fri, 2 Nov 2001 03:54:50 +0000 Reply-To: To: Subject: RE: [lojban] Bald men Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 03:54:07 -0000 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20011031194430.00d2cd10@pop.cais.com> Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 From: "And Rosta" X-Yahoo-Profile: andjamin X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 11869 On the radio today I heard the US ambassador to Britain say "All X are not Y" to mean "Not all X are Y". So it's unlikely to be an innovation in the US. It is strange what a mental wrench it causes us who have the other dialect, though, when you consider that we understand "I don't know nothing", "Ain't nobody going nowhere", etc., with not even the faintest of mental wrenches. --And. > From: Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) [mailto:lojbab@lojban.org] > Sent: 01 November 2001 00:52 > To: lojban@yahoogroups.com > Subject: Re: [lojban] Bald men > > At 03:15 PM 10/31/01 -0500, John Cowan wrote: > >James F. Carter scripsit: > > > As pc points out, English speakers could interpret the sentence two ways: > > > "each and every man doesn't have hair", or "it's not true that every man > > > has hair". A logician would pick the first one, Lojban is a logical > > > language, and the Lojban text is constructed accordingly. > > > >This is about how logicians construe English, not what "ro nanmu na se kerfa" > >means. > > That is also how lojbab construes the English, and NO ONE would call lojbab > a "logician" %^) > > I never saw the other interpretation of "all X's don't Y" until I got on > the Internet. I would not be surprised to find that this is a dialect > difference, such that people like myself and Carter who grew up in CA > understand the "logical" version. (I learned that one says the other as > "Not all men have hair.") But then, Nora says that she learned it the same > way as me, and she grew up in Philadelphia, so perhaps it is a change in > the language with the generations. > > I always do a double take when I read the non-universal "all X's don't Y". > > lojbab