Subject: Re: Dumb answers to good questions

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 07:45:55 -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."

Maybe this is a little off-topic and/or not germane, but it seems to 
me (although I don't know modern -- or any other kind of -- Hebrew) 
that, based on what you wrote, 'lav davka' is better translated into 
English as 'abitrary'. Unfortunately, translating 'davka' 
as 'unarbitrary' (or, in the second example sentence you 
gave, 'unarbitrarily' -- 'davka' can presumably be used as an adverb 
as well as an adjective in Modern Hebrew) seems to me to be 
inaccurate, at least in your first example sentence.

Sincerely,
Robert