Subject: Aesthetics

From: Nick Nicholas <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 16:49:12 +1100

Speaking completely irresponsibly for a change:

And's argument that not conforming to Latin alphabet conventions when 
writing in the latin alphabet is not utterly bogus.

But reading Lojban is hard enough work already without introducing 
*some* signposts. 
.imU'ileda'inunago'ikeinodafAntelenurojbOprecucIskataitu'adei

I have favoured using braces to help out in complex structures. Yes, we 
already have phonetic punctuation. But like I say, it's hard enough 
already. This got vetoed when I did it in the introductory prose to the 
two books, though. Which I accept, since they are exemplars of Standard 
Lojban, and the optional punctuations have never been considered 
Standard.

(Dunno if I liked the = marker for sentence beginnings either. We have 
more choices now, with Unicode...)

When I write lojban, I use lots of linebreaks and lots of indentation. 
For the same reason.

And I regard the refusal to include graphic representations of 
punctuation (the dotless style) as callousness to me the reader. Yes, I 
can work out Lojban written without dots. But why is your lojban so 
cool as to merit the extra headache?

The real solution is a web engine converting between styles, of course.

--
Dr Nick Nicholas [Stephen] King published _The Green Mile_ as
Research Assistant the first serialized novel since the 1920s,
French & Italian in a gesture that was meant to recall the
University of Melbourne serial work of Dickens. No doubt, King is the
Australia Dickens this century deserves.
[email-masked] -- Richard von Busack, _Metro Santa Cruz_,
http://www.opoudjis.net Dec. 8-15 1999, p. 29.