Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: "not only"

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 21:03:20 EDT

In a message dated 4/20/2001 5:59:01 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> > > ko cpacu le sidju be fi le zu'o do jimpe tcidu la lojban .i mi'a di'i
> > > zgana le fatci ka'i le seldu'o .i lu le glico li'u smuni le glico .enai 
> le
> > > glipre
> > >
> > > .i mi zdile selcinri le du'u le glico fanva cu casnu da .i ku'i le mi
> > >
> > Thanks for the advice, but I already had that idea, if you mean {fe le
> > zu'o...}. If you mean {fi}, I'm not sure how an activity can be the 
> author
> > of an idea. Or is the {be} wrong ans this is the source whence I should 
> get
> > the idea. It was that, by the way.
> Are you talking about the 1st sentence? How appropriate! No, the "be fi le
zu'o" is correct. The activity of "le zu'o" is bound to the 3rd (fi) place
of sidju. I'm afraid there are no authors or ideas in that sentence.>

Alas, I have a helper who occasionally screws up, giving me the place 
structure for {sidbo} rather than for {sidju} -- I suppose the eye slides a 
bit moving across the page. Interesting that it makes a sort of sense 
though, a;lways a rare treat.

<> {le glico} means the English something, since it goes on to discuss
> something, I assumed it was animate and probably human  -- not an 
unreasonable
> reading

A mysterious one, since I offered English text, translated it into Lojban,
and then started to compare the two.>

You said the English thing, which could be the sentence, of course (and was 
intended to be) but then said that it discussed something, which an inanimate 
thing can't do -- what is a person to do in this case? Trying to be nice, I 
did the best I could with what I got.

<.i mi zdile selcinri le du'u le glico fanva cu casnu da .i ku'i le mi
lojbo fanva cu casnu na'ebo da>

Ah, I was right! It is the English translator and the Lojbanic translator who 
discuss these matters. Did their discussions affect their final 
translations, which are, I assume, what we have in the original text?  
And what was the original (in what language even) which these two (or two 
phases of you) translated into the two sentences presented? Which of the 
translations is closer to the original in terms of what it is about?
But now you tell me that you translated an English text (the one given here, 
I suppose) into Lojban. Does this mean that there was not another original 
which you first translated into English and then translated that translation 
into Lojban? This story is coming apart rather badly now. 
But not as badly as your Lojban translation, which looked OK to me at first 
glance but which you now tell me is about something different from what the 
English original (?) is about. I am afrraid I don't see it -- and, believe 
me, I would look -- but if you say it's a lousy trat, I'll take your word for 
it.
Since neither of the sentences has much to do with the subject under 
discussion, I don't suppose it matters much, but why flaunt an admittedly bad 
translation of something at best marginally relevant in the midst of an 
argument. It is very bad strategy, unless you are going to pull off a really 
clever coup soon. This latest response would have been a good time; the next 
is the absolute latest for it to be effective, I think.
Or are you having trouble with your assistant, too. If so, I sympathize.