Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: [jboske] RE: Anything but tautologies

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2002 17:33:25 EST

In a message dated 3/2/2002 10:19:14 AM Central Standard Time, [email-masked] 
writes:

> > And how do we tell which is which? If {vei ny le mlatu} means "n cats" 
> why 
> > doesn't {ny le mlatu} mean "n the cats" with "n" standing standing for 
> some 
> > number rather than Nelly?
> 
> Because.
> 
> It just doesn't, that's why.
> 

Fank wu, mommy! Does too! Actually, it think it always refers to the letter 
"n," the one usage tht is clearly presented (I now think it is not clearly 
presented, but it is presented, at least).

<> What you have 
> said is that the letter en is a value and so.

According to *one* interpretation of quotation marks, which I hereby
disclaim.>

Exactly on a par with the the previous explanation (or maybe a little more 
childish). Either we play by the rules, or we announce clearly that we have 
changed the rules. No such announcement that I can find, several clear cases 
of playing by those rules and carefully explaining the difference. So those 
rules are in force and you can be justifably criticized for screwing up big 
time. There are actually only four accepted usages of quotes -- one labelled 
vulgar -- and none of them are for easier reading. 
You can't disclaim the quote convention without making the rest of the 
Refgramm even worse-- virtually all of it then becomes a vast error (a point 
of view that has its advocates, of course).
<> BTW "Mind your 'p's and 'q's" 
> is exactly about letters: the two are easily confused in many people's 
> handwriting and when use to keep tally of one's drinking of a day, errors 
-- 
> mistaking quarts for pints -- can be of considerable consequence. 

That's one theory of the origin of the phrase. There are about a
dozen others, all equally just-so stories with no evidence for them.>

This one is more generally accepted then most (it has a long history of 
attribution back to Goss or so) and most of the others also focus on the 
confusion of "p" and "q" in handwriting -- the crucial point after all.