Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: word for "www" (was: Archive location.)

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 15:35:33 EDT

In a message dated 9/10/2002 12:54:20 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

<<
> > > ralcku could be a library.
> > 
> > Are you saying that a library is one cukta? You've given me the
> > argument right here.
> 
> See above. Try to stay with me.
>>
This remark is dangerously close to undercutting the later claim not to have 
been personally insulting. I can see no evidence here that suggest xod has 
not been following the argument up to the point that this irrelevancy appears 
out of clear blue sky. Unless, of course, what is meant (and very poorly 
expressed) is that just about any book in a library (or every book in some 
specific collection, le'i cukta) might count as a ralcukta for someone -- or, 
inversely, that the books that would count for some people as ralcukta would 
fill a library. This is the point made later more clearly, but it has not 
yet been introduced into the discussion. So taking the sentence as presented 
is not failure to stick with you yet. Continuing to read it in the original 
sense when the new sense has been introduced -- assuming that it is clear 
(and it wasn't to me) that the further discussion is expatiating on this 
sentence -- is perhaps not following or perhaps a useful bit of rhetoric (the 
meanest trick is to take someone at their word).

<<
> > Almost a third of the world would probably assume that ralcku was
> > the Bible (that's the most important book, right?).
> >
> > Another quarter would assume it was the Koran.
> 
> It contains the Bible and Koran. That makes it just as, if not more ralju.

<sigh>

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

It's also contains http://www.thehun.net/, which most people would not
consider the most important book.
So, the rest was meant to be commentary on the sentence, which means "The 
books that people would think are most important would fill a library" or 
some such. Not the most natural reading (or the second or third) but 
possible. I think the rhetorical question is again close to personally 
insulting -- close enought to declare a flame war surely (given that I get 
called a troll for far less and better justified).

<<
Ummm, the actual concept of the web is about sharing educational
resources between universities. 8)
I like this move usually -- being totally literal to make your opponent look 
foolish. It is not cooperative, of course, and, in this case, just makes you 
look obtuse, so it probably fails (maybe it always does, considering the 
trouble it has gotten me into).

<<
The whole *point* of lujvo is that someone should be able to dissect
them and figure out what you mean.

I will bet you *any* *amount* *of* *money* (and I mean that) that if you
ask 20 non-lojbanists what 'principal (as in most important) book'
means, with no other information, that no more than 1 or 2 will guess
the web.

That specification of "the whole of lujvo" would (and does) come as a shock 
to long-time lujvo makers. The whole point of lujvo is to cover semantic 
space using the limited set of devices available. The selection criteria for 
lujvo have never been restricted to those that a person can unpack out of 
context and from the elements alone (note the ambiguity of the underlying 
tanru for one thing, as well as the mass of metaphorical lujvo of yore). A 
good lujvo is generally -- and loosely speaking -- one that is seen as apt 
when it is understood, which need not be when it is first heard or even when 
it is first analysed in the absence of understanding. the best lujvo give 
ahahs when we get them, however that come about. The thoroughly literal ones 
drop out when better (more flavorful) ones come along (historical review 
possible). So your proposed test is irrelevant.

<<
If a lujvo can't pass such a basic test of sanity, dammit, it's a
*shitty* lujvo!
This seems a rather severe judgment on something like ninety percent of the 
inherited Lojban vocabulary. I'm inclined to say that if it passes the test 
easily (say 15 or the 20 get it), then it is a shitty lujvo.

<<
I thought I made some pretty damn good points.
And I don't think that 'the entirety and subtlety' (and modesty? zo'o)
of the original arguments are as far beyond my intellect as you seem to.
I thought you made some good points too, though you do seem to have wandered 
off the argument a bit into what could look like a flame war, since it had 
little obvious to do with the argument you were responding to. And I agree 
that {ralju} leaves a lot to be desired at the moment as a word for the Web.