Re: [lojban] la .alis.

[Michael Everson <michael.everson@gmail.com>]

On 30 Mar 2010, at 15:26, Arnt Richard Johansen wrote:

>> http://www.evertype.com/books/alice-jbo-p.1.png
> 
> Thank you very much!

You're welcome.

> My impressions (if such comments makes a difference to you at this point):

Of course it does.

> Re. the left-hand page:
> Reads like Lojban txt spk. It looks immediately familiar, but the lack of periods before .i makes it look a bit like run-on sentences. Acceptable, but hardly an example of Fine Typography.

That's the source text + font and nothing else.

> Re. the right-hand page:
> First impression: the “I” at the beginning of sentences stick out like a sore thumb! It reminds me of what happens when I type up a Norwegian text in MS Word, and the silly auto-correct “feature” turns the preposition “i” into upper-case. The other sentence-initial capitals, while unfamiliar at first sight, gives off a charming Old Loglan vibe after a while. But the other initials give me pause. Why on Earth is “Blabi” and “Ractu” capitalised? Is it because he is a person, and all references to persons are capitalised in this story?

Yes. He is the White Rabbit and that's what Carroll did.

> If so, why isn't the anaphora “abu” capitalised? Without having the original text in front of me, there is no way to be sure.

I take it that this "anaphora" is a sort of pronoun referring to Alice. The English reads "So she was considering in her own mind..." Well, "she" wouldn't be capitalized. Used as a letter-name, Abu might be capitalized however. (Twinkling begins with a Ty.)

> Setting words in italics when they are preceded by the emphasis marker “ba'e” is fine, but when they appear on their own it looks illiterate. (I presume you are merely copying the italics from some English master, and the emphasis somehow got lost in the English-to-Lojban translation.)

"Very" is italicized twice by Carroll. I don't know what "when they appear on their own it looks illiterate" means. When words appear in italics on their own it looks "illiterate"? 

> The parentheses and quotation marks, on the other hand, eases rather than hinders reading.

I'm not surprised. And the question marks and exclamation marks?

> Comments that apply to both versions:
> The apostrophes in the chapter heading look floating and disconnected because of the large distance between the cap height and the x-height.

Yeah, that's the font. Weird, but that's not my doing. 

> I disagree with Jorge's insistence on straight apostrophes instead of curly apostrophes. Straight apostrophes are an artifact of the conflation of apostrophes/foot signs in typewriters, and does not need to used when alternatives are available.

Indeed; this is a matter of taste. The source PDF has curly apostrophes, and it's in standard Lojban orthography.

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