[lojban-beginners] Re: Heath is the Man!.

[Matt Arnold <matt.mattarn@gmail.com>]

On 1/6/06, Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 06, 2006 at 03:58:29PM -0800, Heath N. Caldwell wrote:
> > On Fri, Jan 06, 2006 at 03:36:20PM -0800, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> > > On Fri, Jan 06, 2006 at 03:32:31PM -0800, Heath N. Caldwell
> > > wrote:
> > > > How would I say that Heath is the man?
> > > >
> > > > {la xit. mintu le pa nanmu} ?
> > >
> > > For myself, I'd say "doi .xit. .io sai".
> > >
> > > However, ignoring the semantices of the sentence, that
> > > translation works, yes.
> >
> > Sweet, because that is my intended joke.
>
> Erm, what is?

Robin,

a meaningful sentence that ignores semantics can be humorous if it
does so based on the listener's expectation. The expectation in this
case is based on an English idiom.

This is why Groucho Marx was humorous when he said "Outside of a dog,
a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."
It may be difficult for Commander Data or a Lojban speaker to
understand this, but this is a form of humor.

-epkat