Re: [HUMOR] How many Lojbanist...

> Gregory Gadow wrote:
>
>>I don't know which makes me the bigger geek: that I understood the joke
>>enough to find it funny, or that I found it in the first place.
>>
>>Q: How many Lojbanists does it take to change a broken light bulb?
>>
>>A: Two. One to decide what to change it in to, and one to figure out what
>>kind of bulb emits broken light.
>>
>>
>>Gregg
>
> I understand but is there a reason in it for being lojbanists? I'd have
> understood if it had been "How many guys..."
>
> Is it that in a lojban sentence, "broken light bulb" would be linked from
> the beggining in ((broken light) bulb) instead of beggining from the end
> in
> (broken (light bulb))?
>
> But I don't know what's the point of a lojbanist for the word change
>
> I've just translated it in French for my brother without using "lojbanist"
> and it works!
>
>
> Sorry for asking: I know that a question asked after a joke ruin it.. :-|
By way of answer, here is a direct quote from the Wikipedia, where I found
the joke (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban)

-- quote --

Something of the flavor of Lojban (and Loglan) can be imparted by this
lightbulb joke:

Q: How many Lojbanists does it take to change a broken light bulb?
A: Two: one to decide what to change it into, and one to figure out what
kind of bulb emits broken light.

This joke makes use of two features of the language; first, the language
attempts to eliminate polysemy; that is, having a phrase with more than
one meaning. So while the English word "change" can mean "to transform
into a different state", or "to replace", or even "small-denomination
currency", Lojban has different words for each. In particular, the use of
a brivla such as the word for "change" ("binxo") implies that all of its
predicate places exist, so there must be something for it to change into.
Another feature of the language is that it has no grammatical ambiguities
that appear in English phrases like "big dog house", which can mean either
a big house for dogs or a house of big dogs. In Lojban, unless you clearly
specify otherwise with cmavo, such modifiers always group left-to-right,
so "big dog house" is a house of big dogs, and a "broken light bulb" is a
bulb that emits broken light (you can achieve the desired meaning with the
appropriate cmavo or by creating a new word, in effect saying "broken
lightbulb").

-- end quote --

And for those who enjoy hypertext encyclopedias like I do, Wikipedia has
an entry on lightbulb jokes at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightbulb_joke

Gregory Gadow