From lee@piclab.com Thu Jan 24 16:22:46 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: lee@piclab.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_1_3); 25 Jan 2002 00:22:46 -0000 Received: (qmail 67003 invoked from network); 25 Jan 2002 00:17:46 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.171) by m6.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 25 Jan 2002 00:17:46 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO piclab.com) (216.121.191.70) by mta3.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 25 Jan 2002 00:17:46 -0000 Received: from localhost (lcrocker@localhost) by piclab.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id QAA21063; Thu, 24 Jan 2002 16:17:32 -0800 X-Authentication-Warning: piclab.com: lcrocker owned process doing -bs Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 16:17:31 -0800 (PST) X-Sender: lcrocker@piclab.com To: Jorge Llambias Cc: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: lojban as a programming language [was Re: [lojban] Lojban for lay programmers] In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: Lee Daniel Crocker X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=1436760 X-Yahoo-Profile: bowtie95841 > >Novels should be in English. Opera should be in Italian. > >Treaties should be in Lojban. > > English was designed for novels?! English wasn't "designed" at all--it evolved. And the art form "novel" evolved with it, and the two are nicely suited to each other. English is also very handy for humor, poetry (certain kinds at least; the Greek vowel-length meter doesn't work, and English Haiku area pale imitation of real Japanese ones), and many other things. But other languages are clearly better suited to specific uses: English calligraphy is nothing compared to Chinese, for example. Here's an exercise for you: translate this Grouch Marx joke into Lojban: "Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. What it was doing in my pajamas I'll never know." That joke /can't/ be expressed in Lojban. It /relies/ on the syntactic ambiguity of English for its humor. -- Lee Daniel Crocker "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC