Re: Keeping Track of Ambiguity in your Conlang?

Quoting Roberto Suarez Soto <ask4it@...>:

> On Aug/30/2002, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
>
> > one or the other, but not both.  This would make it
> > like the difference between American 'to table'
> > (to remove from consideration) and British 'to table'
> > (to put into consideration)
>
>         Curious. I thought there would be some kind of preposition here,
> like "to table in" or "to table out" :-)
No, that would be the logical thing to do, but neither
the Americans nor the British do that. ;)  Another pair
that IIRC gets different treatment on different sides of
the Atlantic is "moot", which can mean either "subject to
debate; arguable; unresolved" or "without legal significance
through having been previously decided or settled".

slabrontshen (you wrote):

>         - From "Siervo" ("servant"), you have "servil" (ehm ... don't
>           know how to translate this; it's "the quality of being prone to
>           serve", or something alike)
English <servile> has the same connotation that you mention
here:  it implies that the person it is applied to has an
almost unmanly tendency to craven submission.  In racist
literature of past ages, it was often used as a blanket label
and excuse for the enslavement of whole populations, and so
has in these somewhat more enlightened days taken on political
undertones unacceptable today.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier
Dept. of Linguistics  "Nihil magis praestandum est quam ne pecorum ritu
University of Chicago sequamur antecedentium gregem, pergentes non qua
1010 E. 59th Street   eundum est, sed qua itur." -- Seneca
Chicago, IL 60637