Re: [lojban] Metaphors (and why making them is a smart move)

So, the answer to your question is "it depends whom you ask" But, of course there are no metaphors that are universal, but that's not importnat for their use, because all you need for use is that your intended audience understands them. Just like the use of "family words" in any natural language (words/phrases that are inside references that only family members understand. For a quick example, in our house, the phrase "to drop the cards" means to fart, because of a tale that need not be gone into here. But no one outside our family would understand it. But that does mean, where I speaking to other family memebers in lojban, I could certainly use karda falcru (or even kardyfalcru) without even needing to mark it as "pe'a" Does that mean that all metaphors must be eschewed simply because some people will not understand it? Not at all. And we even have our own jboklu metaphors (although not that many at this point) which are called cimjvo. You need look no further thatn the word cimjvo itself, or nikyge'u.

But others, such as Robin or And, will argue that lujvo should never be metaphorical.

--gejyspa

On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 4:22 PM, Sebastian Fröjd <so.cool.ogi@gmail.com> wrote:

But how far can you stretch the use of metaphors?
For example I can say tricu stedu for crown of tree, but is it valid to make a lujvo out of it (ricystedu)?
And how universal are metaphors really? Which metaphors are more likely to be common phrases, understood by most people in the world? And which metaphors are unique or used only in particar cultures, and therefore takes more effort to understand? The latter are probably not so suitable for use in lujvo or common conversation.
Does anyone know if there has been any comparative studies on this subject?
/jongausib

Den onsdagen den 16:e november 2011 skrev Michael Turniansky<mturniansky@gmail.com>:

>
>
> On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 2:24 PM, Escape Landsome <escaaape@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> .
>>
>> Hello.
>>
>> In natlangs, people can carry metaphors. For instance, one will say
>> "his heart is filled with anger", as if "anger" was some liquid
>> substance and his heart a recipient.
>>
>> Of course, scientifically speaking, we know that to be wrong, but
>> nevertheless the metaphor speaks to us, and what is more, it is not
>> even dangerous to carry it, for the meaning is clear and context makes
>> it wholly unambiguous.
>>
>> [It can be hard that this latter is not true in the general case. I
>> personally think this "logicist" view is rather misleading.]
>>
>> I don't really know how things happen in Lojban but from what I know
>> of it, I guess there are no metaphors at all (correct me if I'm
>> mistaken). What I guess is likely to happen in a loglan is that you
>> will have *two* brodas :
>>
>
> You are mistaken. In fact, metaphors can happen in many ways. If you want to express that something is to be taken metaphorically, you can mark it with a "pe'a" after it: mi culno pe'a lo ka cinmo. On the other hand, you don't have to mark it if it will be understood well enough as metaphorical. And many gismu specifically have metaphorical meanings (look for example in the definition of "stedu"). And tanru can also be metaphorical. (e.g. see "kosta degji" (coat sleeve) as mentioned in chapter 5, section 14 of the reference grammar)
>
> --gejyspa
>

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