Subject: RE: [lojban] META : Who is everyone (and what are they saying)

From: "Craig" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 06:46:29 -0400

>Nope - if the list is getting inaccessible to newbies, it's good to be
brought
>to our senses.

Then may I call your attention to my first post, when I was having trouble
with my articles? It evolved within one response into an argument about zo'u
that I still don't understand!

>(Incidentally, in the "texts" section of lojban.org there's a
self-referential
>story by David Moser, translated to Lojban by Nick Nicholas. I just
recently
>read it, and it's great. This is something which seems like it was destined
to
>be translated into Lojban.)

For those who care, it's called "This is the title of this story, which also
appears several times in the story itself."

>> elephant.

>A revolutionary tool, being programmed by John Cowan, which supposedly will
>allow us to argue much more efficiently.

The one part I understand is that it will give us the final consensus before
we have agreed on it, or some such.

>> Why do some people support and reject {gumri} ? (Don't you dare
>> tell me to go to the wiki, last time my telephone bill had trouble coming
>> out alive %^).

>{gumri} is a word which once meant "mushroom", but it was dropped from the
>final version of the gismu list. Just now we're getting around to mourning
its
>loss. Some of us, anyway.

Probably also because moldi is glossed as mold.

>> I'm also puzzled by Nick (who, if I've got it right has spent
>> one hell of a lot of time learning lojban) having views such as lojban
never
>> succeeding, rafsi not being a good idea and ... what else?

>Perhaps I should look more closely at what Nick says. I don't especially
>remember him saying that, and thought that I agreed with him on most things
>(but not gumri) :)

>That sounds like the sort of thing And would say, though.

I think nitcion's done with the learning part - he's writing lessons now!
And, is an avid conlanger who manages to be a hardiner while still
tinkering; that's my sense at least.

>> I'd appreciate anyone who could help me by adding their beliefs and
desires
>> for lojban (and who could give any other information that might be
relevant
>> to newcomers - life around lojban-beginners is good but we want to
graduate,
>> there isn't the same element of risk involved in posting there as there
is
>> on lojban :-) Are there others who read the lojban-digest (not individual
>> mails? surely!) avidely hoping to better their lojban, but not often
>> putting their opinions forward because they're bound to lose against the
>> sheer bulk of emails coming from opposers...

>I've always read individual mails. When I joined the list, there weren't so
>many of them, and by the time the volume picked up I was too addicted to
care.

I do too, for about the same reason. It was almost a day after I signed up
before I saw Bjorn Ghola's post on the Decline of the English Language, my
first lojban topic ever.

>>I'm not quite sure where my beliefs fall. Perhaps "reluctant hardliner"
would
>>describe it. I don't like to see certain words having unclear meanings,
but I
>>also don't like ugliness (it took me a long time to accept {ce'u}, and
>>{no'axiro} still pains me). Additionally, I respect the baseline, but that
>>doesn't mean I _like_ the baseline.

Somewhere on the wiki, someone pointed out that respect for the baseline is
like respect for the law - one respects it without necessarily agreeeing
with it.

>I'm interested in Lojban for a few reasons - constructed languages are just
>cool and I find Lojban to be the least flawed one; I believe that using
Lojban
>helps me think more clearly; I eventually hope to see it used for
>human-computer interaction (speech-to-text in Lojban would be a good first
>step).

>I'm also working on getting good at Lojban for another reason: I'm taking a
>course in school called "History and Structure of Language" (which is
basically
>about linguistics). For a semester project in which the assignment is to
>research a topic and then give a 45-minute presentation about it, I plan to
>teach the class a bit of Lojban. High-schoolers might be a tough audience,
but
>at least they're there because they're interested in language. I plan to
spend
>lots of time on cmene in that presentation.

>This implies that I'm another young Lojbanist (mi jbena fi li 1983 pi'e 12
pi'e
>9), but I try not to draw too much attention to that fact.

So I'm not the only one around here.

>> An example of something that took me ages to understand : xod no longer
>> signs his emails so and doesn't have xod in his address ; how's a
newcomer
>> supposed to work out who is referred to in the sentence "xod said...".
>> Another thing... it took me a month to work out that pycyn was lojban for
>> PC - who's name I eventually found in the reference grammar. This is NOT
>> your fault but it should give you an idea of how complicated life is...

>It seems that xod deliberately makes himself difficult to refer to, with
the
>strange names he gives himself. (At one point I referred to him whimsically
as
>{la kokofintis.}) "xod" gives us a nice, concise way to refer to him, even
if
>it confuses the heck out of newbies (sorry).

I think it's also in his address - [email-masked], which makes me wonder
who his six girls are. My suspicion about it being Invent Yourself, BTW, was
only confirmed during discussion of logfest - xod was going to speak only
lojban, and then he said that he wanted others to understand him (during the
infamous "Rabbity Sand-Laugher" debate, when we disagreed on whether the
sentence ".a'unaicai pe'idai le nu fanva la .alis. cu palci" means that the
speaker feels that translating alice is evil, which he most certainly did
not).

>> Anyway, here's the list of information about me that might be useful, and
>> that I'd like to know about you (so far I've worked out that you don't go
>> arguing maths with pycyn - if you can help it - but knowing such things
in
>> advance might be useful)

>I don't think the math part was the problem in particular - just the
>"arguing with pycyn" part. :P

Probably the most typical PC quote is "Nice to see someone else's spleen for
a change." The someone else was me.
I'm actually wondering if we need a new gismu (WARNING: SARCASM AHEAD):
"besto" - x1 is an asbestos suit (metaphorically) worn by x2 over e-mail x3,
disagreed with by x4 for obvious reason x5

--la kreig.daniyl.

'segu le bavli temci gi mi'o renvi lo purci
.i ga le fonxa janbe gi du mi'
-la djimis.BYFet

xy.sy. gubmau ckiku nacycme: 0x5C3A1E74