Re: Tr: Re: boustrophedon (was: Atlantis II)

well i use a 5-step graduation between both extremes of a dualism

around 100% Strongness, lets call it "Top Yang"
around 75%  Strongness, lets call it "High Yang"
around 50%  Strongness, lets call it "YinYang"
around 25%  Strongness, lets call it "Low Yin"
around 0%   Strongness, lets call it "Bottom Yin"

so the medium level is always expressable,
and both extremes have a graduation of 2 steps,
which is just perfect, not too much, not too less.

the problems with this are:
a) its very uncommon for english-speakers to get used to this system.
b) i need a consistent system which kind of terms i assign to Yin and
   which to Yang. the chinese's philosophy is usefull to enlight me,
   e.g. how "Inside/Outside" is related to e.g. "Up/Down".
   is "Up" correlating with "inside" or with "outside" ?
   the chinese know it.

but this system is more then necessary since the natural
way to use particles like "very/abit" are more than medieval,
and horrible inconsistent and annoying to use all the time.
an inflection is a must for these imho.

regards,
c.s.


NT> Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>> I agree with you, and I think that why common terms usually have unrelated
>> contraries with about the same size (cf. big vs. small, thin vs. thick, French
>> grand/petit, etc...). For less common terms, the fact that they are used less
>> often makes the loss of equality less important (also, they are usually longer
>> words, so one syllable more is usually not that much :) ).
NT> Plus, which item is to be taken as basic?  Is it "big" and "unbig" or
NT> "unsmall" and "small"?  :-)

NT> That's one thing I like about 1984's Newspeak.  "Doubleplusungood" is
NT> just so much fun to say.  :-)  And, if you believe in Sapir-Whorf, it
NT> would tend to encourage a sort of polarized worldview.

NT> But, in my languages, I prefer to have unrelated words for opposites.
NT> Like, how would you say "Well, she's not *pretty*, but she's not *ugly*
NT> either", if you simply used negations?

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