Re: More proverbs, and a digression on badness

["Jorge J. Llambías" <jorge@intermedia.com.ar>]

la robin cusku di'e
>   ko xamgu seria lenu se xlali
>   ko xamgu .i ko se xlali
>   ko ge xamgu gi se xlali
>
>"ko xamgu .i ko se xlali" sounds nice, and is a closer translation,
>but what it means semantically is that I am ordering/requesting you
>to be good (for someone) and also to be the recipient of something
>bad.  

Right. I don't know how justifiable it is to use the Lojban imperative
in this way. The proverb is an admonition against being good, so it 
sounds strange to translate it as {ko xamgu}.

>The sense is more like "le prenu poi xamgu cu se xlali" but
>that's pretty boring.  

You might use the same pattern of some of the other proverbs you 
translated: {le xamgu cu se xlali}.

Maybe we can even make a properly lojbanic proverb based on 
this and playing with complements and opposites:

    i le zunle cu se pritu
    i le gapru cu se cnita
    i le xamgu cu se xlali

>Perhaps "pe'a ko ge xamgu gi xlali".

I would tend to read it as saying "I don't mean xamgu and xlali 
literally", rather than "I don't mean this as an imperative". 

>With this next one I'm not sure if the metaphorical use of "barda"
>in "barda tavla" (talk big) is permissable:
>
>   ko citka le barda djaspi .i ko na barda tavla

I think it's acceptable. I assume it means "don't talk about big 
things" (implying something like too big for you to understand)
and not "don't exaggerate", right?

Maybe more succintly: {ko lo barda cu citka gi'enai setese tavla}

>and finally the opposite of "dog eat dog" perhaps!
>
>   le lajgerku na batci le lajgerku

To me that says that it doesn't bite itself. I would say:

       lo lajgerku na batci lo lajgerku

co'o mi'e xorxes