Re: [lojban] RE: Rabbity Sand-Laugher

[Jay Kominek <jay.kominek@colorado.edu>]

On Sun, 3 Jun 2001 pycyn@aol.com wrote:

>                                            If I, a Dodo clone (logician,
> college teacher, game maker, punster, Anglican deacon trainee, admirer of the
> mysteries that are little girls, photographer, and on and on), have refrained
> from translating any of Alice for 25 years because of my awareness of the
> total inappropriateness of doing so, whence -- ignorance aside -- come the
> chutzpah of people with none or few of these qualities and only a passing
> understanding of either Alice and its world or Lojban to take on this task.

Wow. That was so senselessly egotistical and just plain rude that it took
my breath away.

If I said something so amazingly insulting to a large group of people, I'd
be making sure that I had my asbestos long johns pulled up over my head.

> Are there no other books deserving of translation to take your skills out on,
> ones to which the skills would be appropriate?

Well, if the people participating have only a passing understanding of
Lojban, as you claim above, then what does that leave them to work with,
"See Spot Run!"?

>                                            What about Oz or Willows (I
> an only think of about a half dozen problem in Oz; there are that many on an
> average page in Alice) or Pooh (aside from the saccharine spelling -- as
> Dorothy Parker, writing as Constant Reader remarked "Tonstant Weader fwowed
> up"), if you must do children's books.
>                                                         Or finish the Bible
> before taking on anything else.

If you're so interested in having those translated, why don't _you_ do
them? The people working on Alice are doing so because Alice interests
them. If Oz doesn't interest them, then trying to get them to translate it
will be futile, as nothing will happen.

And something does need to happen if Lojban is to grow. Sitting on it and
using it merely as something to argue about will not get the language to
go anywhere.

> My complaint is about the fact that it is done at all.

Whining about what other people ought to be doing with their free time is
disgusting. They're interested in using Lojban as more than something to
argue over, at least have the decency to leave them alone.

- Jay Kominek <jay.kominek@colorado.edu>
  And this too, shall pass.