[lojban] Re: railgun

[Chris Capel <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

On 5/24/05, Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> On Tue, May 24, 2005 at 12:38:41PM -0700, John E Clifford wrote:
> > So, I shouldn't answer your questions?
> >
> > Getting back to the issue, then, in the long word for "gun", all
> > of the places come from {cecla} and {xarci}.  The use of {jinme}
> > for the bullets is either superfluous or inaccurate (if you think
> > that all bullets are metal, then it is the one, if you accept,
> > say, ceramic bullets, the other).
> 
> *boggle*
> 
> jinme is in there to *distinguish* bullets that are only used to
> fire metal bullets from other types, such as those that fire ceramic
> or rubber bullets.  So it is neither superfluous nor inaccurate.

OK. Maybe xumjimcelxa'i is an approriate word in its context in la
nicte cadzu. But I don't think this word has much general usefulness
at all. I think a nice, general word for gun that covers all handheld
projectile launchers would be a good thing to have in the general
vocabulary. Once you have this nice, general word, if you need to
emphasize some aspects of its design, this could be easily done with
tanru or restrictive subordinate phrases. Perhaps we would find a new,
more restrictive lujvo convenient. But doesn't coming up with
something as unwieldy as xumjimcelxa'i right in the beginning sort of
jump the gun?

Even if you needed to refer to this particular type of gun two or
three dozen times in a story, couldn't you just begin with {celxa'i
poi cecla lo jimne lo xukmi} (which, incidentally is much clearer that
xumjimcelxa'i) or something and let subsequent references use
{celxa'i}? (Maybe not in la nicte cadzu--I haven't read it, so I
wouldn't know.)

Chris Capel
-- 
"What is it like to be a bat? What is it like to bat a bee? What is it
like to be a bee being batted? What is it like to be a batted bee?"
-- The Mind's I (Hofstadter, Dennet)