[lojban] Re: [jbovlaste] jbovlaste natlang word voting question

[Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org>]

On Sat, May 12, 2007 at 08:17:08PM -0700, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> 
> As a related philosophical issue, is it OK for the second place of
> sampli to mean both "computer program" and "computer" (as is
> currently the case)?  Why or why not?  I'm honestly not sure one way
> or the other.

No.

Because "se sampli" doesn't actually *mean* "computer program" or "computer", but "something that is used by a computer user". Pointing people to "sampli" when they were looking for a good translation of "computer program" or "computer" is misleading.

Perhaps a more extreme example would help illustrate this. Suppose that someone writes an entry for "tikpa" in which the x2 points to "thing". That is correct, strictly speaking, because the x2 of "tikpa" always is a thing. But it is misleading, because not every thing is a se tikpa. Likewise, not every computer and computer program is a se sampli.

-- 
Arnt Richard Johansen                                http://arj.nvg.org/
Information wants to be anthropomorphized!


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