From sbelknap@UIC.EDU Wed Jan 22 09:30:23 2003 Return-Path: X-Sender: sbelknap@uic.edu X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_2_3_0); 22 Jan 2003 17:30:23 -0000 Received: (qmail 24593 invoked from network); 22 Jan 2003 17:30:21 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m5.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 22 Jan 2003 17:30:21 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO larch.cc.uic.edu) (128.248.155.164) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 22 Jan 2003 17:30:21 -0000 Received: (qmail 28185 invoked from network); 22 Jan 2003 17:30:18 -0000 Received: from cis5044.uicomp.uic.edu (HELO uic.edu) (128.248.250.44) by larch.cc.uic.edu with SMTP; 22 Jan 2003 17:30:18 -0000 Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 10:29:25 -0600 Subject: Re: [lojban] By the way < tangent? Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v551) Cc: lojban@yahoogroups.com To: Bob LeChevalier In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20030121192356.00ab41c0@pop.east.cox.net> Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.551) From: Steven Belknap X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=810567 On Tuesday, January 21, 2003, at 06:33 PM, Bob LeChevalier wrote: > At 11:41 AM 1/20/03 -0600, Steven Belknap wrote: >> I am skeptical about this being malglico. One has to have *some* >> metaphor, and any particular metaphor is likely to be closer to some >> culture's existing than another's. > > But a metaphor should have something to do with the correct > meaning. Lojban tanjo pertains to the trigonometric tangent, and does > NOT > have anything to do with the other sort of tangent (meaning "barely > touching"). Only the fact that the English word is polysemous leads > to the > use we made of it. The trigonometric tangent can be defined (and was originally defined) as "the other sort of tangent". These two senses of the trigonometic tangent are identical mathematical functions. The mental picture I have is of a conversation which is proceeding nicely in the usual circular orbit of social chit-chat, but suddenly veers off on a trajectory which is a no longer constrained by the "gravitational force" of conversational etiquette. How apt! Whatever its sordid history, is well within the bounds of how metaphors are used in other instances in lojban. co'o mi'e la stivn