[lojban] Re: Penguicon Lojban Presentation

[John E Clifford <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

My turn to be puzzled.  What was my joke that you
understand?  The one I thought I was making was
just translating the English expression "Cool!"
as the Lojban expression {cmalenku}, which, of
course, does not mean "cool" in that sense at
all.  This is a common form of Lojban mistake,
malglico, here used deliberately (as I hoped
everyone would recognize) for effect.  But
{cmalenku} is not --in practice, though not
officially -- a proper lujvo for "cool" even in
the meaning of "slightly cold" since it is not
(in practice though it is officially) a literal,
analytic definition of the meaning (that this is
the way lujvo go is actually against the spirit
of the official line but is the way practice has
almost uniformly gone).  When Robin said
"literal" my mind flashed to the recent
discussions about the situation in lujvo
construction.  It did not occur to me that he had
figured out the lujvo meaning (he is not great at
this even when they are analytic -- nor am I for
that matter) and was merely puzzled by how the
literal meaning of "slightly cold" applied to
your  description  -- despite the fact that he
had just said that the situation was cool -- in
the colloquial sense -- himself.  So I responded
to the comment I read, not to the one he wrote.
some where in the archives is a translation --
with several emendations, of course -- of the
classic "I know that you believe that understand
what you think I said, but I am not sure that you
realize that what you heard is not what I meant,"
a possible motto for Lojban work generally.
--- Matt Arnold <mattarn@123.net> wrote:
> I understand the humor, but I also understand
> how Robin would be confused wondering what was
> cold about my presentation. {cma} had nothing
> to do with your joke. Or are you still joking?
> -Matt
> 
> clifford-j@sbcglobal.net wrote:
> >--- Robin Lee Powell
> ><rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> >> On Thu, Apr 28, 2005 at 01:08:51PM -0700,
> John
> >> E Clifford wrote:
> >> >
> >> > --- Jorge Llamb?as <jjllambias@gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> > > On 4/28/05, Robin Lee Powell
> >> <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>
> >> > > wrote:
> >> > > > On Thu, Apr 28, 2005 at 06:59:11AM
> -0700,
> >> > > John E Clifford wrote:
> >> > > > > cmalenku
> >> > > >
> >> > > > ki'a sai .o'o cu'i
> >> > >
> >> > > pe'i smudji zo zabna i cumki ji'a fa lo
> nu
> >> lo tu vensa za'o na
> >> > > banzu glari'a
> >> > >
> >> > Well, yes, it was meant to be favorable
> and,
> >> yes, Spring here has
> >> > goone from 8os back to 40s (Fahrenheit,
> >> obviously).  But all I did
> >> > was observe -- like Robin -- that the
> events
> >> described were cool
> >> > (calque and thus not really approved, but
> it
> >> was a short joke).
> >>
> >> Wow.  I'm so used to the literalism of
> Lojban
> >> that, as usual, the
> >> joke never occured to me.
> >>
> >Gee, I can't even claim this as a fancy
> >metaphorical lujvo; {cma} has been used
> >consistently as a diminutive and/or lessening
> >prefix since the get-go.
> >
> 
>
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