Re: [lojban] Re: cusku - say or express?

[Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>]

On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 11:57:27AM -0800, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> The problem in smart.fm is not the main entry for cusku, which is
> "x1 says x2 to for audience x3 via expressive medium x4"; I can
> recognize that as distict from tavla (or, if I can't, it's my
> problem).  The problem is the place cards, like "lo cusku" for "a
> sayer".  "a sayer" and "a talker" mean *exactly the same thing* to
> me, neither of which is cusku (again, language mouth noises)
> there's nothing to distinguish them except to purely memorize that
> "a sayer" is cusku and "a talker" is tavla, but the whole point is
> to memorize *the meaning* and not just the keyword
> correspondences.
> 
> Without explicitely memorizing the correspondences, I'm going to
> always say that "a sayer" and "a talker" are both "lo tavla",
> because they both mean mouth noises.
> 
> Having to engage in explicit keyword memorization annoys the hell
> out of me, and even if it's not quite correct, "an expresser"
> matches cusku to me better than "a sayer", because "an expresser"
> doesn't mean mouth noises.

To expand on that: even if "I express "Oh no!"" is wrong (and it
looks like bad style to me, but not wrong), I still assert that "lo
cusku" translated as "an expresser" is just fine, but "lo cusku"
translated as "a sayer" is not, because the latter implies mouth
noises.  I assert, in fact, that translatiing "lo cusku" in
isolation as "a sayer" is simply wrong; that's how strongly "say"
implies mouth noises to me.

Maybe my use of "say" is wrong, but the point of flashcards is to
work *with* how I understand the language I already know, not
against it.  Since at least one native English speaker has agreed
with me, I don't think I'm that weird anyways.

-Robin

-- 
They say:  "The first AIs will be built by the military as weapons."
And I'm  thinking:  "Does it even occur to you to try for something
other  than  the default  outcome?"  See http://shrunklink.com/cdiz
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/