Subject: Re: Dumb answers to good questions

From: "A.W.T." <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 18:24:47 -0000

--- In lojban@y..., mark@k... wrote:

> You know, come to think of it, Hebrew (particularly Modern Hebrew) 
> has a word that's used something like this: "davka." It doesn't 
> translate very well. The closest I can come is "particularly." 
> "Why did davka Bob have to hit Fred." (why *particularly* Bob?) "Why 
> did Bob davka hit Fred?" (why hit and not kick), and so on. Yes, 
> among some folks you would in fact use it in English sentences too. 
> And there's the phrase "lav davka"/"not particularly" for saying 
> things like "The example in the book where it says "noun" is lav 
> davka; it could be any word."

Don't think that there is a comparable one-word term in English:

Hebrew "davka" (dvkh) or Yiddish "davke" (dvvk') have similar counterparts in German.
davka: "gerade", desto trotz, "ausgerechnet" e.g. "Warum gerade er?" "Ausgerechnet ich wusste dies nicht!" 
(Why, of all people, it's me? I, of all people, didn't know this!) 
Here's what Uriel Weinreich (Vaynraykh) gives for "davke" (dalet,tsvey vovn,kof, sht. alef): "only, necessarily; none other than, 
nothing short of"

Don't think that Lojban has a word for this purpose, but why not use {fa, fe, fi, fo, fu} positioning for it? (the Book is mentioning 
this!)

mi'e .aulun.