Subject: Re: [lojban] (from lojban-beginners) pi'e

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 13:01:09 EDT

In a message dated 9/14/2001 9:13:28 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> >And the whole point is that we are much more likely to want to talk about
> >a day in this month than a year all by itself,
> 
> ??!!
> 
> You people really thought that?!
> 
> I'm speechless.
> 
> So, I'm unlikely to say I was born in 1971. I am far likelier to say I was
> born on the 29th. Right.
> 

No, but you're more likely to talk about what you're doing next week than 
about when you were born. Or about next week than the Crusades, for that 
matter.

<> Well, {Pavoso Renanc} isn't someone's (or something's) name for
> starters.

(a) Says who? A name's a name for anything I please. (b) If I wanted
Glorking for dates... Whatever. But even glorking is better than a broken
standard>

Well, {Pavoso} is not a cmene is all I meant.

<> The harder on is to tell that something takes  place this October.

{li pi'e pano}. Next?>

OK, not so hard, though longer than the year case even in DDMMCCYY

<And btw, the only sensible thing to say about pi'e, and still keep it with
months and days (which we want to), is that it represents "parts". It
cannot be just "variable number bases". Variable number bases implies that
digit n is number base A, and digit m is number base B; not digit n is
number base A, and digit m is number base B for numbers not rhyming with
"ember", and C for numbers you can eat lobsters doing. Variable number
bases imply arithmetic that makes sense. That's not the case for {pi'e},
so let's just say the definition of {pi'e} shifted the minute it was
applied to months, and leave it at that.>

Good advice and essentially what has been done historically with the 
antecedents of {pi'e} back to Babylon.