Re: [lojban] again about "out of"

[Escape Landsome <escaaape@gmail.com>]

> If you explain the metaphor while using it, what's the point of having
> the metaphor?

Nobody ever said that a metaphor was intended to be necessarily
opaque.  What I would like is some construction half-way metaphor, and
half-way lojbanic.  This would need two new operators [see original
message].

> I don't understand why a "cat" should be used in this sentence. What's
> the point?

A metaphor has something to do with a cultural experience, that is,
some experience most speakers of the language have had, or which they
have been taught about, through their relatives.

Thus, the story of the cat out-of the bag, is the following : in
former days, when a merchant on a market wanted to sell a good
chicken, but had not the fowl, he put a cat in a bag, and sold the cat
as though it were a chicken.   But, suppose the cat escaped from the
bag, the treachery came into light at that precise moment.

So, suppose some speakers of some language X, Y, Z... have the same
cultural foreground, which include this "story" or "experience" of the
cat-thing, then it is acceptable, on linguistic basis, to use this
language imagery to convey this meaning.

---

Now, either there is some cultural background common to everybody in
Lojbanistan (and the notions of lojban grammar are a part of such a
cultural background, so this background IS NON-EMPTY)...

or that is not the case.

In the former case, some metaphors should be possible to carry out.

In the latter, no metaphor can be produced, but at least some new
construction whose goal would be "to introduce instant and temporary
metaphors that have meaning during the interaction", should be
feasible.

I would say ( // and * would be two new lojban words ) :

"You really let the cat//info out-of the bag//concealment !"

And you would reply

"But the *cat was nearly dead..."

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