Subject: Swearing with tanru [was : Re: "which?" (was: RE: [lojban] centripetality: subset vs component]

From: Robin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 21:05:33 +0300

John Cowan wrote:
> 
> Robin wrote:
> 
> > (a) impermissable culturally specific metaphor (i.e. malglico)?
> > (b) not really malglico (because in virtually no culture would someone
> > appreciate being called a dog) but meaningless if talking to a human and
> > tautological if talking to a dog?
> > (c) not exactly "high Lojban" but permissable given the communicative
> > context (i.e. the listener would automatically fill in the missing
> > {pe'a} or read the sentence as "le do mamta cu simla lo'e gerku")?
> 
> Probably all three. But the righteous way is to form a tanru with
> "mabla" and a fair description of the person: thus "you are a $#(@# redhead"
> is "do mabla ke xunre se kerfa". In Lojban, there are an infinite
> number of swear-words!
> 
Am I wrong in assuming that {lo mabla ke xunre se kerfa} presumably does
not mean "you are a ***ing redhead" in the sense of "you are a redhead,
which is something I find objectionable" (which is how I would normally
interpret the English)? I would interpret the tanru as "You are a
redhead of an objectionable kind" i.e. many redheads are perfectly OK,
but you happen to be one of those mabla ones. Is there a way to
construct the tanru to be really bigoted and imply that _all_ redheads
are mabla, which I think expresses the english "****ing redhead" better.

If I remember rightly, the same thing came up with {malglico} i.e.
strictly speaking it does not mean "Bloody English!" but English in a
derogatory way, which is not quite the same. OTOH, since it's a lujvo, I
suppose we don't have to be so fussy about place structure as we do with
tanru.

BTW, {mabla} is begining to catch on amongst my friends as an
all-purpose swearword.

co'o mi'e robin.

-- 

"If the cucumber is bitter, spit it out,
but do not ask why there are bitter
cucumbers in the world" - Marcus Aurelius.

Robin Turner
IDMYO
Bilkent Üniversitesi
Ankara
Turkey

http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~robin