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Re: [jboske] lo'e, le'e

In a message dated 10/18/2002 5:39:51 AM Central Daylight Time, a.rosta@hidden.email writes:

<<
Fair enough, but on this point I become a xodite: when applied to
classes that appear to be non-singleton (with 0 or more than 1 members),
lo'e/le'e force us into a new world-view. In such a case it is
perfectly legitimate for you say "I have no inkling what this means"
or "I have an inkling, but when I think it through it just doesn't
stand up", but part of its appeal is precisely that it coerces a
novel world-view onto the underlying 'facts' of the universe.

>>
Building koans into the language defeats the whole point of koans, which work by using the ordinary to force the extraordinary.  Something labelled "this is to make you see the extraordinary" is just going to fail -- and lead to frustration.  It is not the job of langauge to force a new world view but to give means to decribe the world of a given view adequately.  It is a bonus that that means can also -- properly used -- force a reconceptualization of the world.  In Lojban terms, putting in a word that is claimed to have a Whorfian effect, pretty much guarantees that it won't -- and it clutters up the language with useless detritus.  Better, I think, to drop {lo'e} altogether or give it a meaning within the langauge as now bound.  Especially when there is a pretty useful thing it could do (and historically has done, albeit confusedly).