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Re: Down from a duck
- To: John Cowan <cowan@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>, Eric Raymond <eric@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>, Eric Tiedemann <est@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>
- Subject: Re: Down from a duck
- From: John Cowan <cbmvax!snark.thyrsus.com!cowan>
- Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1992 11:22:07 EDT
- In-Reply-To: <920602045811_72627.2647_DHJ27-3@CompuServe.COM>; from "Don Harlow" at Jun 2, 92 12:58 am
- Reply-To: John Cowan <cbmvax!snark.thyrsus.com!cowan>
- Sender: Lojban list <cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!uga.cc.uga.edu!LOJBAN>
Don Harlow complains that my Lojban word for "the process by which an acorn
falls into the water and becomes a duck" omitted the falling into the water
part. I was using a heuristic that says "five parts of a compound is enough".
However, to demonstrate Lojban's flexibility, and also to demonstrate the
Lojban aphorism
lo cimni ka satci cu se jdima lo cimni ni valsi
The price of infinite precision is infinite verbosity.
I will create a more precise and more verbose word:
cindytsijauborfaljavdatkyborbi'oru'e
cindy-tsi-jau-bor-fal-jav-datky-bor-bi'o-ru'e
oak seed water [hyphen] fall and duck [hyphen] become process
((oak seed) ((water fall) and (duck become))) process
Still only fourteen syllables.
--
cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan
e'osai ko sarji la lojban