Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: lujvo

From: Robin Lee Powell <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 18:08:03 -0400

"=?iso-8859-1?q?Alfred_W._Tueting_(T=FCting)?=" writes:
>la robin. cusku di'e
>
>> Umm, while I agree with the point that individual users of lojban
>> need not be culturally neutral, I would strongly suggest using 'le'
>> for any word so intended. I, for one, am not impressed by the phrase
>> "the *real* mother of God (=Jesus Christ)".
>> 
>> Speak for yourself, thanks.
>
>No, I do not want to speak for myself: so /le/ doesn't seem appropriate
>(doesn't it say: something I - the speaker - describe?)

Yes, precisely. If I read "le <foo>" in lojban, where foo translates to
"the mother of God", no problem. If I read "la <foo>" where foo is a
transliteration of "Madonna" or translates to "the mother of God", no
problem. If I read "lo <foo>" where foo translates to "the mother of
God", I'm going to be pissed. It assumes that there is an objectively
observable God _and_ that said God has a mother _and_ that it's the God
you're talking about. I would find that set of assumptions offensive.

>Just want to have a Lojban expression for something by others than me
>described as 'Madonna'. IMHO this should be possible the same way like
>having an expression for 'shoe' or 'tree'. 

"Shoe" and "tree" are a hell of a lot more objectively observable than
"the mother of God".

-Robin

-- 
http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rlpowell/ BTW, I'm male, honest.
... stripped of our uniqueness as human beings by Darwin, exposed to our
own inadequacies by Freud, ... Power -- "the ability to bring about our
desires" -- is all that we have left. --- Michael Korda, _Power!_