optional punctuation

[Nick Nicholas <nicholas@uci.edu>]

You will have noticed that the Lojban-language preface of the lessons uses
optional punctuation, including ! and ; . I myself think optional
punctuation is a good and wondrous thing, because I find slabs of lowercase
Lojban with no punctuation and capitalisation indigestible. (I am very much
aware that punctuation and capitalisation are Western-only conventions;
then again, so is learning to read Latin script.)

To me, the preface is not part of the paedagogy of the lessons; there's
usage in there, after all, that's not covered in the lessons. Nonetheless,
it has been pointed out to me that there is conflict between using optional
punctuation in the preface, and saying that punctuation is not necessary in
Lesson 1. I don't think there is such conflict ("not necessary" !=
"banned", "thousand flowers bloom", yadda yadda); but what do you think?
Harmful eccentricity, or needless confusion? If there's enough consensus,
I'll kill them. (Kicking and screaming, admittedly.)

Nick Nicholas,  TLG, UCI, USA.   nicholas@uci.edu    www.opoudjis.net
"Most Byzantine historians felt they knew enough to use the optatives
 correctly; some of them were right." --- Harry Turtledove.