Subject: Koalas

From: Nick NICHOLAS <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 02:19:08 -0700 (PDT)

I've already said this on the Wiki, but I feel anything important that
gets said on the Wiki has to be said here too.

1. The vogue in Type 4 fu'ivla seems to date from after I left. I don't
like it, and won't be using them. I think that introducing words en masse into
Lojban without a clear classifier on what the hell they might mean, and
introducing humonguous potential error in words falling apart, is utterly
wrongheaded. I can't stop people from using them, but I can agitate for
Type 3 to remain the preferred citation form in any dictionary.

And canonical Type 3 means four-letter rafsi, btw.

2. A Linnaean fu'ivla that doesn't allow a reasonable reconstruction of
the Latin it came from is useless. We are not importing fu'ivla to
be easily speakable; we are importing them to be understood. And I'm
sorry, but there is no way I'm going to get from fasxolarto to
Phascolarctos. The x is just wrong, and who on earth said Lojban should be
afraid of rkt? (And -arkto, at least, I would have recognised as the Greek
for 'bear'.) The legitimate fu'ivla for this, as far as I'm concerned, is
danlrfaskolarkto (or mabrnfaskolarkto). I still have to work out from
that that the f is Greek ph rather than Latin f, but at least now I
stand a chance of doing an index search (if not a web search.) If you'll
make it fasxolarto, you might as well make it rko'ala and be done with it.

If I get time this next couple of months, I'll put up on the Wiki Loglan's
procedure for borrowing Linnaean names, which I think has a lot to
recommend it.

Sorry about the piss'n'vinegar, btw. Annoyed with myself because I didn't
get any work done today, mostly...

-- 
== == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == ==
Nick Nicholas, Breathing {le'o ko na rivbi fi'inai palci je tolvri danlu}
[email-masked] -- Miguel Cervantes tr. Jorge LLambias