From robin@BILKENT.EDU.TR Thu Feb 22 03:19:52 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: robin@Bilkent.EDU.TR X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_0_4); 22 Feb 2001 11:19:52 -0000 Received: (qmail 47612 invoked from network); 22 Feb 2001 11:19:51 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by l10.egroups.com with QMQP; 22 Feb 2001 11:19:51 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO firat.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr) (139.179.10.13) by mta3 with SMTP; 22 Feb 2001 12:20:54 -0000 Received: from bilkent.edu.tr (IDENT:robin@fen130 [139.179.97.69]) by firat.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id f1MBOX022788 for ; Thu, 22 Feb 2001 13:24:33 +0200 (EET) Sender: robin@Bilkent.EDU.TR Message-ID: <3A94F67C.E864F3A6@bilkent.edu.tr> Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 13:22:36 +0200 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.17-21mdk i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban Subject: Re: [lojban] RE:su'u References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: robin Invent Yourself wrote: > > On Wed, 21 Feb 2001, Robin Lee Powell wrote: > > > On Thu, Feb 22, 2001 at 12:39:41AM +0200, robin wrote: > > > "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" wrote: > > > > > > > > At 05:08 PM 02/21/2001 +0000, And Rosta wrote: > > > > >Nor can it be laziness, because intellectually, rather than digitally, > > > > >zei lujvo are the easier option. > > > > > > > > But digital laziness exceeds intellectual laziness among the programmer > > > > types that frequent Lojbanistan. > > > > > > Which is why a lot of cmavo remind me of UNIX commands! > > > > > > Rather off-topic, here's an acronymical conundrum I set my students: > > > > > > Why do UN and IRA take a definite article, while UNESCO and ETA do not? > > > > Umm, ETA, in my universe, takes a definite article when, and only when, > > its expansion would in the same place. "What's the ETA on that?". I > > don't know what UNESCO stands for. > > Call me weird but when I see "ETA" I first think of the Basque national > liberation force, not "Estimated time of arrival". > > I never hear anybody discuss UNESCO so I don't know how it's used. > Yes, I was referring to the Basques. It's one of the few cases where a short acronym is pronounced as one word in British non-geek English, probably because it was imported direct from a language where this "wordification" is the norm - other examples are PRI (Mexico), which I've heard pronouced both as a word and as individual letters, and ANAP (Turkey - Anavatan Partisi, so more of a blend than a real acronym). It seems to be the case that English treats wordified acronyms as proper nouns, hence the absent article. I guess most Lojbanists would go the same route; i.e. use cmene rather than lujvo or fu'ivla. robin.tr