[lojban] Re: .aunai and .a'unai

[Zefram <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

John E Clifford wrote:
>Well, we may just use the word differently.  I
>would take both your {a'ucu'i} and {a'unai} as
>"not interested" 

Then I'm not explaining them well enough.  We have an interesting (u'i)
pair of words in English, "uninterested" and "disinterested": these
aren't quite {a'unai} and {a'ucu'i}, because they're mostly concerned
with a different sense of "interested", but the distinction between them
is a close parallel for the distinction I'm drawing.

>Well, it seems that {a'unai} comes before that:
>we are preesumably unwilling to acquire more
>information already before we have too much
>(namely as soon as we have enough  or very
>shortly thereafter).

I think one can be retroactively unwilling ("I wish you hadn't said that"
is roughly what "TMI" conveys).  There's also, as Jorge alluded to,
"I don't want to know", which I might say if I see a body in your trunk.
These are definitely {a'unai} rather than {a'ucu'i}.

An example of {a'ucu'i}: in the course of professional work I need to
learn about a lot of things.  Some of them I feel {a'u} about.  Others I
don't care about, and wouldn't be learning about for fun.  The latter I
approach with a professional dispassion, which is expressed by {a'ucu'i}.

More specific: part of my previous job entailed reading other people's
mail.  I cultivated an {a'ucu'i} attitude.  Occasional bits of mail
would be {a'u} (co-workers discussing office politics) or {a'unai}
(mail to a sexual health charity).

-zefram