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

[Lindar Greenwood <lindarthebard@yahoo.com>]

Personally, I don't understand why xorxes keeps trying to define Lojban in terms of other languages. Who gives a *insert colourful phrase here* what English or Spanish uses?  Seriously... If the keyword is your biggest gripe, then just pick a new keyword or pick more than one keyword. What bothers me is that, like Sonja keeps doing, you're trying to arbitrarily assign and map English words to Lojban words that don't have a direct translation to English, and then slapping on the "GOOD ENOUGH" decal.

x1 (agent) expresses/says x2 (sedu'u/text/lu'e concept) for audience x3 via expressive medium x4.

It seems that there's no one single word to describe this concept as it doesn't exist in English (the language for which we're trying to find a keyword). In Lojban, this word can be used to express (<--hah) that somebody is saying something, it can be used to say that somebody is expressing a concept which can be expressed in a sentence (sedu'u), or even 'the symbol for...' (lu'e) in the case of hand gestures or any other applicable situation. This could even be used to describe expressive dance, body language or other nonverbal communication, and any number of other strange concepts. 

tavla... well, not gonna get into it, but it doesn't really say anything about the method of communication, only that it's one-sided/agentive.
You completely forgot casnu, but that falls under the same domain. Doesn't really specify. "converse"

So, every single 'communication word' we have doesn't specify verbal speech in any way, and we have a word specifically for "expresses with language-mouth-noises". Therefore, you can't really use words from English as we don't have these concepts. Perhaps "expressing" is the  best for cusku, regardless of whether or not it makes sense in English (because we're not speaking English, so what does it matter if it makes sense in English? [specifically targeting xorxes here]), because "expressing through interpretive dance", "expressing through sign-language", "expressing through anecdote", "Expressing, 'I think we need more beer.' through yelling like an idiot." makes just about as much sense as you could possibly get through literal translation, keeping the same gloss word for each example (rather than, 'interpretively danced...', 'signed...', etc.).

To illustrate my point, how do you gloss "lo blanu"? You can't, because there is NO English equivalent, at all, ever. Sure you can argue "a blue thing" or just say "a blue", but "a blue thing" is "lo blanu co'e" and "a blue" is incorrect English grammar. There will NEVER be a way to translate that accurately to English, so you have to COMPROMISE. This is also what you need to do with all of these talking/expressing words, because they don't perfectly map to English (and if they did, I wouldn't be learning Lojban, because the point is to not map perfectly to English or we'd just be speaking English... or maybe Cockney...).

So, you're both wrong.
xorxes: Stop trying to map everything to English words like Lojban works that way.
rlp: Make a better suggestion, then.
The both of you: Stop wasting time arguing about arguing. At least 10 of those e-mails were just you two arguing about the way you were arguing.

Huggles and loves for you both. Now, If you can't come to an agreement, then I'm taking your toys away and you're both grounded for a week. We're not having a damn civil war over how to map things to English when you both know better.

cusku - express
tavla - tell
casnu - converse
bacru - phonate

There. Four whole words that can't be confused.
Do these work for the both of you?

<3