tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Aug 21 20:16:16 1999
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Re: HIQaH
>From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
>Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 14:23:01 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
>
>On Thu, 19 Aug 1999 06:23:22 +0200 Christiane Scharf
><[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> jatlh charghwI':
>>
>>
>> >On Tue, 17 Aug 1999 12:22:22 -0500 Terrence Donnelly
>> ><[email protected]> wrote:
>> >
>> >> At 10:50 AM 8/17/99 CDT, Marc wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> >> {lojmIt} for "door", I don't know what to call the device that
>> >> >> unlocks it. I could coin {ngaQwI'} or {ngaQHa'wI'}, but then
>> >> >> I've violated my design goal of using only simple canon words.
>> >
>> >Perhaps you have overly extended goals. If there is no simple
>> >word for what you want, then you need a description of it. When
>> >I've imagined this, I've considered that the lock is the ngaQwI'
>> >and the key is the ngaQHa'wI' because it is the lock which locks
>> >the door and it is the key that unlocks it.
>>
>> {ngaQ} is "be locked". The thing that locks the door would be a
>> {ngaQmoHwI'}, the thing that unlocks it would be a {ngaQHa'moHwI'}.
>
>The lock does not cause the door to be locked. The lock is
>locked. The door itself is, if you really think about it, never
>locked. It merely won't open. But the lock is definitely the
>thing which is locked.
>
>You do have a point about the key, however, since that is the
>thing which causes the lock to be unlocked.
I tend to find this reasoning rather nitpicky. You might also say that the
door is never open, but rather the doorway is open. This distinction is
more worthy of Lojban... and possibly too fine-grained even for them.
~mark