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Year-only Dates
The use of cneme for years; eg, "la pasozevonanc." or
"la pasozevonan." for 1974; annoys me. Even though I have
not been active in this group for about a month, I have
been thinking about Lojban issues. I wonder why "moi" has
never been suggested for the year. The best shortest
expression I have come up with is "le pasozevomoi nanca":
"that which I describe as the 1974th year".
This is a bit vague, as the question arises "1974th year
of what?" However, I believe that, particularly with the
"le" article, the usage will be clear enough for common use.
If one wants to be more formal, then I suggest one of the
following usages:
lo pasozevomoi veldetri bo nanca
the 1974th calendar year
lo pasozevomoi xriso[1] bo nanca
the 1974th Christian year
Note that "calendar year" has a different meaning in
English than it is being translated from here.
I have also switched the article to "lo" in these forms.
[1] xriso (Christian) might be replaced with kampu (common),
slabu (familiar), or stici (western). I add western because
there might be a problem with "kampu" or "slabu" in Mulsim
countries. Or if one wants to one can create a cmeme for
"Gregorian", "Gregory", or even "Catholic" or
"Roman Catholic" if one is so inclined. I personally would
stick with xriso or stici, unless someone comes up with a
better suggestion than stici for the calendar in common use
that avoids refering to religion; with the exception of
using cmeme for "Gregorian" and "Julian" where that
distinction needs to be made.
Now I can express:
.i lo jbena be fa mi be'o cu cabna le pasozevomoi nanca .i
I was born in 1974.
.i lo jbena be mi be'o cu cabna le pasosobimoi nanca .i
I gave birth in 1998.
(Yes, the second statement is false.)
Now, tell me if something is wrong with my use.