[lojban-beginners] Re: Silly things to say in Lojban

["Michael Turniansky" <mturniansky@gmail.com>]

On Feb 12, 2008 11:54 PM, Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu> wrote:
> On Tuesday 12 February 2008 15:24, Michael Turniansky wrote:

> > .i gerna fi lu ganra grana garna li'u
> > ("A broad-stick railing" is grammatical)
>
> I had to look that up, as usually we say "gendra" to say that a phrase is
> grammatical. The distinction is that "gerna fi do'i" means that there is a
> grammar that governs do'i, whereas "do'i gerna" means that do'i is correct
> according to the grammar.
>

  (For your last, I think you meant "do'i gendra".  "do'i gerna" means
that an utterance IS a grammar/grammatical rule, which is pretty much
a meaningless sentece.)  In any case, yes, I meant "grammatical" in
the wider sense of "is governed by the rules of a grammar" (definition
1 of "grammatical" in MWC) rather than "correct by the rules of a
grammar" (def. 2).  I thank you, though, for clarifying the
distinction for those who might have been confused.


>
> .i vajni ke vanju jivna javni
> (Important to cottabists, that is.)

  Okay, now it's my turn to say, huh?? "Cottabist" isn't in any of the
onelook dictionaries nor on www.websters-online.dictionary.org, which
even has some lojban words on it! it only has five hits on google,
three of which are identical, and two of which are German.  I assume
from context it means an something like oenophile or vintner?

  (EDIT:  Ah!!!  www.oedilf.com comes to my rescue.  It must mean a
participant in a cottabus?)


> .i le nakni bakni cu bunre xunre
>

  (I like this one, because it's something that might actually be
uttered in the real world!)

                   --gejyspa