Subject: Re: [lojban] RE: Rabbity Sand-Laugher

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2001 19:26:55 EDT

<Wow. That was so senselessly egotistical and just plain rude that it took
my breath away.

If I said something so amazingly insulting to a large group of people, I'd
be making sure that I had my asbestos long johns pulled up over my head.>

Well, if my publicly announcing that -- and why -- I am offended by what 
others are doing offends those others we come out about even, leaving only 
the dead authors without recourse. So let us leave them alone for a while, 
starting with Dodo.

<Well, if the people participating have only a passing understanding of
Lojban, as you claim above, then what does that leave them to work with,
"See Spot Run!"?>
The last time this was suggested, it was pointed out that "See Spot Run" s a 
remarkably complex sentence in Lojban (and so, presumably in English, too -- 
suitable perhaps for learning to read a language you know, but not good for 
learning a language). Long stretches of most novels are much simpler and 
more appropriate for beginners and journeymen (which, by the way, everyone 
says they are -- whether out of modesty or accurate assessment I am not 
sure, but I take them at their own evaluation unless it is proven otherwise. 
And so far, overevaluation seems to outweigh under.)

<If you're so interested in having those translated, why don't _you_ do
them? The people working on Alice are doing so because Alice interests
them. If Oz doesn't interest them, then trying to get them to translate it
will be futile, as nothing will happen.>
I am not interested in translating Oz or anything else; I am interested in 
seein good translations done and that requires chosing translatable texts. 
Oz is one, suggested 
simply for someone with an urge to do kiddylit. If no one wants to do it 
(though we have at least one sufferer from Baumania amongst us), then it 
won't get done and we will be little the worse for that. Being interested in 
something may be a necessary condition for doing it, but it for doing but it 
is not sufficient. There is also the question of whether you CAN do it in any 
meaningful sense. I have been told by people whose opinion I respect that I 
cannot write my way out of a wet paper bag with a Bowie knife and -- since 
their opinion is backed by some pretty hard evidence -- so I don't do that 
sort of thing. Other have other views of their own talents and so some of 
them do do that sort of thing, and, if their views are correct, more power to 
them. And if they are not, then they should be shunted off to where their 
talents lie --and Alice, for example, calls for a variety talents that do not 
often go together, whereas Oz calls for fewer and more commonly cohabiting.

<And something does need to happen if Lojban is to grow. Sitting on it and
using it merely as something to argue about will not get the language to
go anywhere.>

I couldn't agree more. But producing a pile of crap because of poor planning 
and poor choices seems to me a bad way to get the language off its duff. It 
may be that it will lead the next round of interested people to say "Hey, I 
can do better than that" -- and they may even be right. But it may equally 
or more likely lead them to say "This 
is a dumb language; look at the crap in it!."

<Whining about what other people ought to be doing with their free time is
disgusting. They're interested in using Lojban as more than something to
argue over, at least have the decency to leave them alone.>

They are doing it in the interest, they say, of doing something for Lojban. 
It seems appropriate, then, to suggest that they use that time to good 
effect. The fact that I am also emotionally involved in one particularly 
easily abused piece may color my remarks somewhat, but does not change their 
general relevance. As far as leaving them alone, I have never noticed that 
anyone took anything I said as interferring with what they did and I have no 
sense that they will this time. But I would hope that it would get some 
people to think through their translating a bit further: Is this text 
something that can have roughly the same value in Lojban as in its original 
language?
Can I bring that out? Am I willing to do the work required to do it or at 
least make a decent start on which others can build?