From graywyvern@hotmail.com Mon Oct 23 08:51:24 2000 Return-Path: X-Sender: graywyvern@hotmail.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@egroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-6_1_0); 23 Oct 2000 15:51:23 -0000 Received: (qmail 4665 invoked from network); 23 Oct 2000 15:50:22 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m3.onelist.org with QMQP; 23 Oct 2000 15:50:22 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO hotmail.com) (216.33.237.224) by mta1 with SMTP; 23 Oct 2000 15:50:22 -0000 Received: from mail pickup service by hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Mon, 23 Oct 2000 08:50:18 -0700 Received: from 209.176.48.40 by lw7fd.law7.hotmail.msn.com with HTTP; Mon, 23 Oct 2000 15:50:18 GMT X-Originating-IP: [209.176.48.40] To: lojban@egroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Re^n: literalism Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 15:50:18 GMT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 23 Oct 2000 15:50:18.0294 (UTC) FILETIME=[F1407560:01C03D08] From: "michael helsem" >From: pycyn@aol.com li'o >unless the explanation >already pushes beyond the old concepts, all you have is an old >concept, a potential that has already been covered. Take Prigogine's "emergent order" for instance. That's a subtle & important idea, rather challenging to traditional "craftsman" metaphors, & presently reduced only so far as a cliche' couplet. It would be nice to say it in a single word of fewer syllables, but what does that have to do with its availability as a novel idea? Or consider "wuy", a word i coined to mean "casual unquestioning acceptance". One can use this concept already without having had a word for it. And there's the experience of learning to ride a bicycle: no one word for this, & probably not even explicable in descriptive language at all. You just have to do it. li'o >But suppose you want to talk about a racoon, in >alanguage which doesn't have a word for it or any notion of it up til >the first confrontation. another name for racoon is "washbear", & MELA LUMCI CRIBE is intelligible. i'm not sure LUMCRIBE would work. li'o >I don't see how non-literal lujvo, by themselves, threaten lojbanic >purity, it's not a question of purity, but rather of whether we want to enshrine a bunch of metaphors that may prove seriously misleading when substantial numbers of non-european learners are trying to figure out what sort of thing scrapes the sky when there isn't a sky to scrape. _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.