Re: This list is not as I expected

["Mark E. Shoulson" <mark@kli.org>]

>Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 04:30:26 -0400
>From: Paul Dufresne <dufrp@oricom.ca>
>
>From: Paul Dufresne <dufrp@oricom.ca>
>
>Somehow, I am worry about if Lojban can really be used to think, in
>day to day process. I guess the answer is, of course not. A language
>is a communication tool, and you cannot use Lojban to write a report
>to your employer, or listen to the TV, because your employer is not
>speaking Lojban (most likely), and there is no Lojban TV channel, yet.
>
>But then, at least it should be very usable to do personal thoughts in
>your mind. But somehow I have the feeling few if any does that.

I won't say I do it every minute of every day, but I certainly have been
known to use Lojban to re-formulate thoughts in my head to clarify what's
going on.  Just breaking things up into what exactly are the participants
(arguments) to which relationship (predicate) and all can be a big help.
An really good anecdotal answer doesn't come to mind offhand, but a
slightly weaker one will do.  The only reason this one is weaker is because
I didn't happen to work it out myself, but rather wasn't thinking too
clearly that day and wound up asking on this list, and other people
supplied the answer.  I had been musing about two lines in a Raffi song my
son had been listening to.  One said, "I don't need a lumberjack to pour my
milk" (i.e. I can do that without a lumberjack; also "I don't need a radio
to sing a song), and the other was "I don't need a dinosaur to eat me up"
(i.e. I could really do without that happening at all).  The English uses
the same structure for both meanings.  What's going on here?  Obviously, we
have {mi na nitcu loi Lumberjack loi nu pour my milk} vs. {mi na nitcu loi
nu lo Dinosaur cu eat me} (Yes, I know I'm speaking macaroni; it's
followable, though).  This is the kind of thinking I use Lojban for, to
help get at the root of concepts properly.  In this respect, incidentally,
I think the {le nu} construct is an underappreciated hero of Lojban.

~mark