debating style and attitudinals

[Robin Turner <robin@BILKENT.EDU.TR>]

.ue.uanai.u'i

As usual I can't follow the finer points of some of these strings, but the
debating style is reminiscent of MIT in the sixties (not that I was around
then, but I enjoyed reading a few of the bloodier exchanges in the
"linguistics wars"). Is this just the way Lojbanists speak English, or are
you really at each other's throats?  Maybe you could mark your text with
[mabla] , [.ionai] or [le'uro'e] if you really want to insult or
intellectually dismember each other, and perhaps [pe'azo'o] if you're just
kidding (I'm assuming the latter would translate as "speaking figuratively
and humorously").

[ta'o] peppering text with attitudinals, discursives etc. might be a good
idea overall, since (a) [a'o] it makes things clearer, (b) we get to
practice/test them (c) [ru'a] we could observe some Sapir-Whorf effects,
such as greater emotional clarity, and (d) it could be fun. For beginners
such as myself, attitudinals are one of the easiest and most productive
parts of the language. [e'unai] watch the typing, though, since hitting the
wrong key could be disastrous (for example, if And, in one of his
characteristically vitriolic postings, were to write [le'uro'u] instead of
[le'uro'e]!).  And whatever the rights and wrongs of it, [pe'u] no ironic
attitudinals!

co'o


Robin Turner

Bilkent Universitesi,
IDMYO,
Ankara,
Turkey.

<http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/8309>