Re: [lojban] Re: y: what is it good for?

[Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>]

On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 06:06:05PM -0400, Nora LeChevalier wrote:
> At 09:22 AM 5/14/04 -0700, Robin wrote:
> >On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 08:17:30AM -0700, Jorge Llamb?as wrote:
> >>
> >> --- "Adam D. Lopresto" <adam@pubcrawler.org> wrote:
> >> > I almost wish ybu weren't, and were replaced with something like
> >> > pensi bu, but that's going way too far.
> >>
> >> Excellent suggestion.
> >
> >I agree, actually.  It is *without* *question* a language change, but
> >it's a *damned* good idea.
> 
> I disagree.  "y.bu" is the letter "y"; "pensi bu" is a symbol for
> thinking/thinker or something like that; fine for a symbol for
> hesitation if you want that.  But, they are separate things.  You
> don't spell An. with "vlina bu ny"; you spell it "a bu ny".

I'm sorry, that's a strawman argument.  You're comparing non-related
things.

Remember, y is *not* a vowel; the CLL is very clear on this.  ybu is
entirely a special case already.

Furthermore, you don't spell "CAT,erin" ga'e cy abu ty n'a ,bu ebu ry
ibu ny".

 denpa bu  BY*      pause symbol
                    letteral: Lojban "." character



 slaka bu  BY*      close-comma
                    letteral: Lojban "," character

There is more than sufficient precedent for this sort of thing, and Y is
currently the source of more special cases in all three parsers than any
other word that I'm aware of.

It is, of course, clearly a language change, but that doesn't mean that
it's a change that wouldn't make any sense in the context of the rest of
the language, which is what you seem to be implying.

-Robin

-- 
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/  ***  I'm a *male* Robin.
"Many philosophical problems are caused by such things as the simple
inability to shut up." -- David Stove, liberally paraphrased.
http://www.lojban.org/  ***  loi pimlu na srana .i ti rokci morsi