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

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 17:23:03 -0400

At 02:42 PM 06/04/2001 -0700, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> > >The reason this occured is because when I asked for suggestions of books
> > >to translate that were originally in English, NO ONE GAVE ANY!
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> > I feel a need to correct you on this, not to defend pc. I did mention
> > that I had done some starting work on Burton's Arabian Nights,
>
>Read me again. The Arabian Nights do _not_ pass that criteria. One
>could even argue that Burton's translation is in a different dialect of
>English from what I speak.

I'll agree, but then so is Alice.

But I don't recall your specifying a source language like this in your 
original requests, and you did not mention this as being an issue when you 
answered my query about putting it up.

I have now looked back on your old posts. From 4/13:
>3. Some means, probably a CVS server, of giving anyone who wants to
>help the ability to participate in developing large translations (i.e.
>Hamlet or the Bible or whatever).

Then there was no discussion or public proposals of works to be posted until

>The only file that's ready to be worked on is alice.texinfo, which is a
>marked up version of "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland". It's all one
>big file now, but if people want me to break it into chapters I can do
>that.
>
>I felt that that book met my crieteria for a translation project the
>best:
>
>1. English as the original language.
>2. Relatively _modern_ English.
>3. Light on double entendre.
>4. Popular.
>5. No copyrights.

And I see that you DID specify English as the original language here, 
though I question whether a book heavy in wordplay isn't a violation of 
what you said about double entendre.

I had remembered your original posting as setting the standard, and the 
Bible and Hamlet do not meet your criteria as set forth here. I don't see 
that you issued any call for other works to put up after you posted these 
criteria (which was after you had already put Alice up).

My point is not to criticize what you did (on the contrary, I approve 
heartily), but rather to observe that communication of your intent and 
desires fell through here, and it was never clear that you were seeking 
other works that met the above 5 criteria, since you did not post the 
criteria until after you had made a selection.

(BTW, I would add Sherlock Holmes to the list of candidates, noting that 
this work is also much translated and has the benefit of extensive 
scholarship from the Baker Street Irregulars as to any idiosyncratic 
meanings of various passages and references.)

lojbab
--
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org