From pycyn@aol.com Thu Aug 17 08:36:01 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 15082 invoked from network); 17 Aug 2000 15:36:00 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by m2.onelist.org with QMQP; 17 Aug 2000 15:36:00 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO imo-r16.mx.aol.com) (152.163.225.70) by mta1 with SMTP; 17 Aug 2000 15:36:00 -0000 Received: from Pycyn@aol.com by imo-r16.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v27.12.) id a.66.69f60b6 (661) for ; Thu, 17 Aug 2000 11:35:57 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <66.69f60b6.26cd605d@aol.com> Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 11:35:57 EDT Subject: Re: [lojban] Careful with noi! To: lojban@egroups.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 3.0 16-bit for Windows sub 41 From: pycyn@aol.com For what it is worth in the {noi}-{poi} discussion, the "which had no" clause is always an essential feature of the gift. The song is a relict of some tale in the Clever Girls and Impossible Tasks section of folklore (I forget the Arne-Thompson number, but it is right around "Rumplestiltskin") in which the girl must bring a bunch of impossible things to win (back) her true-love. The next verse is all "How can there be a...", which brings us back to the empty bottle problem. In the final verse the girl, either so casuistical as to make Portia look like someone failing L1 or aided by the True-Love Fairy (Rupert Everett in Billie Burke's fig from Oz), comes up with a solution, in this case a cherry blossom, a chicken egg, a rolling ring and a sleeping baby -- the last two iffy and the first two almost certainly not working in Lojban