From jorge@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xxx Fri Nov 20 15:59:26 1998 X-Digest-Num: 12 Message-ID: <44114.12.60.959273823@eGroups.com> Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1998 20:59:26 -0300 From: "=?us-ascii?Q?Jorge_J._Llamb=EDas?=" ko xamgu seria lenu se xlali > ko xamgu .i ko se xlali > ko ge xamgu gi se xlali > >"ko xamgu .i ko se xlali" sounds nice, and is a closer translation, >but what it means semantically is that I am ordering/requesting you >to be good (for someone) and also to be the recipient of something >bad. Right. I don't know how justifiable it is to use the Lojban imperative in this way. The proverb is an admonition against being good, so it sounds strange to translate it as {ko xamgu}. >The sense is more like "le prenu poi xamgu cu se xlali" but >that's pretty boring. You might use the same pattern of some of the other proverbs you translated: {le xamgu cu se xlali}. Maybe we can even make a properly lojbanic proverb based on this and playing with complements and opposites: i le zunle cu se pritu i le gapru cu se cnita i le xamgu cu se xlali >Perhaps "pe'a ko ge xamgu gi xlali". I would tend to read it as saying "I don't mean xamgu and xlali literally", rather than "I don't mean this as an imperative". >With this next one I'm not sure if the metaphorical use of "barda" >in "barda tavla" (talk big) is permissable: > > ko citka le barda djaspi .i ko na barda tavla I think it's acceptable. I assume it means "don't talk about big things" (implying something like too big for you to understand) and not "don't exaggerate", right? Maybe more succintly: {ko lo barda cu citka gi'enai setese tavla} >and finally the opposite of "dog eat dog" perhaps! > > le lajgerku na batci le lajgerku To me that says that it doesn't bite itself. I would say: lo lajgerku na batci lo lajgerku co'o mi'e xorxes