Re: CONLANG T-Shirt: "Your yahzick could be in this mesto."

Jeffrey Henning writes:
 > Brook Conner <nellardo@...> comunu:
 >
 > > In the second sentence, Alex calls a bar a "mesto" - doesn't sound
 > > like an expanse or area to me:
 > >
 > >   The Korovo Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, where you could get milk
 > >   plus a little something else, like synthemesc or drencrom, to
 > >   sharpen you up for a little of the old ultraviolence.....
 >
 > Alex uses mesto to mean "place".

Yes - to clarify my earlier statement, I was intending to say "A bar
is not something that people usually categorize as an expanse or area,
but a bar *is* something people usually categorize as a place."

 > It's one of the few mistakes I think
 > Burgess made with Clockwork Orange, which is an excellent book, especially
 > for artlangers.  When 'mesto' is introduced in this second sentence, you
 > automatically grok that it means "bar", but you've grokked wrong -- he's
 > uses it more generally than that later.

Where exactly is the mistake? The only "mistake" I see is the one the
reader made in assigning a meaning to a word with, arguably, too
little context. I say "arguably" because "bar" connotes serving
alcohol, and Korovo (Russian for milk, natch) clearly doesn't serve
booze - it serves milk with mescaline. Now, when modified, as it is
here, "bar" *can* mean something else (e.g., "salad bar"), but
"restaurant", "store", even "container", would fit as well.

 > So I still stand by 'mesto'.

Agreed - absolutely.


co'o mi'e brukcr.

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