USAGE: mandatory veracity & pygectomy (was: RE: USAGE: WOMYN (was: RE: [CONLANG] Optimum number

John Cowan:
> And Rosta scripsit:
>
> > I'm sure there is some name for a clinical condition similar to
> > what JYS Czhang has -- something like "gelotolepsy", though I
> > have a feeling that I invented that & it's not the correct term.
>
> Googling reveals that "gelotolepsy" is a synonym for "geloplegia",
> which is defined (badly translated from German) as "loss of affective
> tone with cheerful mind excitation; in connection with imperative sleep
> urge, e.g. as symptom of narcolepsy."
OK, that -- the one where laughter leads to fainting -- is not the
one I mean. I mean the propensity for collapsing in helpless
laughter with relatively minimal provocation.

> > ObConlangish: For some reason, in my usage (as writer & reader)
> > LOL, ROTFL, etc. have to be literally true
>
> For LOL I hold the same as you, but the more emphatic terms need
> not be literally true for me: if I am LOLing I am willing to say
> that I am ROTFLing even though I remain in my chair.  After all,
> would you be unwilling to say that you are ROTFLMAOing in any
> circumstances other than an actual glutectomy?
'pygectomy'?

Anyway, on reflection I think I agree with you about ROTFL (not
a term I myself use, because I keep on confusing it with RTFM),
though given that its meaning is idiomatic, I think one can
truthfully say "I laughed my arse/ass off" if one merely laughed a
lot without actually getting debuttocked.

> > Livagian too has a class of words, such as those
> > for promises, declarations of love, No-that-reaaly-means-No,
> > etc., that must be used honestly and without irony. To utter
> > them insincerely, even if the insincerity misleads noone, is
> > seen as at best in very bad taste and at worst as intolerably
> > antisocial.
>
> Lojban attitudinals have this property.
I had originally included mention of Lojban attitudinals in my
message, but on reflection deleted that, because Lojban attitudinals
are like 'ouch' and 'wow' -- they *express* emotion and attitude
without making truth-conditional claims, yes, but as with the
English interjections one may use them without really the emotion
or ironically. So I think they're different. I admit that the
Lojban community does comprise some who wish to police our usage
so that all Lojban usage is most puritanically literal -- but
that reflects one side of Lojban culture rather than the language
itself.

--And.

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