Re: A fairy tale

[John Cowan <cbmvax!snark.thyrsus.com!cowan>]

la .iVAN. derdjimbab. cusku di'e

> >  > Er, I think {slabu} meant {to'e cnino}, not {to'e citno}.
> >
> >  I hope you're wrong.
>
> Verdict, Messrs LeChevalier and Cowan?

The place structures confirm that "slabu" and "cnino" are the parallel
ones.  A better gloss of "slabu" would be "familiar".  Unfortunately,
Bob has said repeatedly that "ni slabu" is "age" as in "length of life".
I have complained about this almost as often but to no avail.

To my way of thinking, the notion that length of life has something to do
with old-ness is an un-thought-out reflex of the English idiom "He is six years
old."  This is very non-logical: in what sense is a person of six said to
be "old" = "toe'rcitno"?

> Well, actually, maybe I'm wrong.  It seems to me that something can
> only be called a {nazbi} if it is really a body part - a breathing
> tool and organ of olfaction.  If this is not the case, then I propose
> the Slavic-inspired tanru {cucyza'u} for the heel part of the shoe.

I don't have a problem with this lujvo: as soon as I looked up the unfamiliar
rafsi I accepted it.  In general, the body parts (like the chemical elements,
the plants and animals, and other parts of the gismu list with which people
often have trouble) are put in for use in true metaphor.  The notion that a
table has legs has been enshrined in Lojban/Loglan since the beginning.
Likewise, it causes no problem to say that a clock has hands and a face.
Bob has proposed "river-anus" for what in English is called a river mouth.

--
cowan@snark.thyrsus.com         ...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan
                e'osai ko sarji la lojban