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Discussion of "kauvboi"

Comment #1: Not actual cowboys?
Wuzzy (Sat Jul 13 19:04:26 2013)

Just to get this right: This valsi does not refer to _actual_ cowboys,
right?

Comment #2: Re: Not actual cowboys?
Sebastian Frjds (Mon Jul 15 18:44:28 2013)

Wuzzy wrote:
> Just to get this right: This valsi does not refer to _actual_ cowboys,
> right?

What is an "actual" cowboy? When you think of a cowboy you probably
doesn't think of just any person taking care of cows (that's xirbakyku'i).
Maybe you think of John Wayne, Hollywood movies, the lonely rider with a
gun, maybe you call a tough guy "cowboy" (especially if this guy comes
from US), maybe you think of modern people in US dressed in cowboy
clothes, ranch owners, rodeo riders.. That's why I've added a x2
culture-place and a x3-standard place to the word. It could mean different
things for different people. The following is from wikipedia:

"In today's society, there is little understanding of the daily realities
of actual agricultural life. Cowboys are more often associated with
(mostly fictitious) Indian-fighting than with their actual life of ranch
work and cattle-tending. The cowboy is also portrayed as a masculine ideal
via images ranging from the Marlboro Man to the Village People. In 2005,
the United States Senate declared the fourth Saturday of July as "National
Day of the American Cowboy".
The word "cowboy" is also used in a negative sense. Originally this
derived from the behavior of some cowboys in the boomtowns of Kansas, at
the end of the trail for long cattle drives, where cowboys developed a
reputation for violence and wild behavior due to the inevitable impact of
large numbers of cowboys, mostly young single men, receiving their pay in
large lump sums upon arriving in communities with many drinking and
gambling establishments.

"Cowboy" as an adjective for "reckless" developed in the 1920s.[7]
"Cowboy" is sometimes used today in a derogatory sense to describe someone
who is reckless or ignores potential risks, irresponsible or who
heedlessly handles a sensitive or dangerous task.[112] TIME Magazine
referred to President George W. Bush's foreign policy as "Cowboy
diplomacy",[113] and Bush has been described in the press, particularly in
Europe, as a "cowboy".[114]

In English-speaking regions outside North America, such as the British
Isles and Australasia, "cowboy" can refer to a tradesmen whose work is of
shoddy and questionable value, e.g., "a cowboy plumber". "

Comment #3: Re: Not actual cowboys?
Wuzzy (Mon Jul 15 23:52:35 2013)

Okay. You presented me these definitions:
- someone who watches out for cattle
- someone like John Wayne ;-)
- a tough someone
- (metaphor) masculine symbol (in one sense)
- derogative term
- someone who is reckless

I can remove “derogative term” from the list since your definition
explicitly mentions some kind of “cowboy culture” (whatever that may
be).

If all the remaining definitions are valid interpretations for
“kauvboi”, I do not think that this valsi is very useful. It is highly
ambigious. If it just were vague, I would be okay with it. But it isn’t
just vague, it is too ambigious. The difference between “guy who watches
out for cattle” and “a guy who is like John Wayne” is too big to
unite them both under one valsi. Also uniting “reckless” and
“tough” under one valsi is a bad idea.

I have no idea what “kind” of cowboy you actually meant with
“kauvboi”. Also what the heck is the “cowboy culture”? Even if
something like that existed, it is unclear what kind of “cowboy” was
meant. Is it the culture of the “John Wayne”-style cowboys or the
“cow watcher”-style cowboys? Or even something else? So the x2 place
does not reduce ambiguity at all, it seems. :-(

Currently, it seems I am not going to like this valsi, after all. Copying
words from the English language including all their ambigiuty to Lojban
seems like a very bad idea to me.

I’d be much better to extract all the useful possible meanings of
“cowboy” and give each of them their own valsi. That would be much
much better than having one vague, ambigious and possibly even confusing
valsi. Four of them are already defined:

- someone who watches out for cattle: xirbakyku'i
- a tough someone: tsali
- (metaphor) masculine symbol (in one sense): nakni?
- derogative term: mabla
- someone like John Wayne: currently no Lojban valsi
- someone who is reckless: possibly currently no Lojban valsi

Comment #4: Re: Not actual cowboys?
Sebastian Frjds (Thu Jul 18 07:06:13 2013)

Wuzzy wrote:
> Okay. You presented me these definitions:
> - someone who watches out for cattle
> - someone like John Wayne ;-)
> - a tough someone
> - (metaphor) masculine symbol (in one sense)
> - derogative term
> - someone who is reckless
>
> I can remove “derogative term” from the list since your definition
> explicitly mentions some kind of “cowboy culture” (whatever that may
> be).
>
> If all the remaining definitions are valid interpretations for
> “kauvboi”, I do not think that this valsi is very useful. It is
highly
> ambigious. If it just were vague, I would be okay with it. But it
isn’t
> just vague, it is too ambigious. The difference between “guy who
watches
> out for cattle” and “a guy who is like John Wayne” is too big to
> unite them both under one valsi. Also uniting “reckless” and
> “tough” under one valsi is a bad idea.
>
> I have no idea what “kind” of cowboy you actually meant with
> “kauvboi”. Also what the heck is the “cowboy culture”? Even if
> something like that existed, it is unclear what kind of “cowboy” was
> meant. Is it the culture of the “John Wayne”-style cowboys or the
> “cow watcher”-style cowboys? Or even something else? So the x2 place
> does not reduce ambiguity at all, it seems. :-(
>
> Currently, it seems I am not going to like this valsi, after all.
Copying
> words from the English language including all their ambigiuty to Lojban
> seems like a very bad idea to me.
>
> I’d be much better to extract all the useful possible meanings of
> “cowboy” and give each of them their own valsi. That would be much
> much better than having one vague, ambigious and possibly even confusing
> valsi. Four of them are already defined:
>
> - someone who watches out for cattle: xirbakyku'i
> - a tough someone: tsali
> - (metaphor) masculine symbol (in one sense): nakni?
> - derogative term: mabla
> - someone like John Wayne: currently no Lojban valsi
> - someone who is reckless: possibly currently no Lojban valsi

kauvboi is a loanword for translating a complex cultural specific
concept from natural language. Of course you can translate cowboy to
xirbakyku'i, tsali, nakni, me la jon vein ku simsa etc if you
prefer, but that doesn't catch all the nuances of the word cowboy. I don't
agree that kauvboi is ambiguous, it just include all those associations
I've mentioned which has become interrelated due to an historical process
of this cultural concept. You could say that cowboy is an important
concept in American culture, just as for example the concept of ubuntu is
important to understand some African cultures, or nirvana in Indian
religions; concepts very difficult to translate to lujvo equivalents.
That's one reason why we have fu'ivla, to talk about complex concepts with
just one short word.
You know approximately what I mean when I say something like "Our kids
played cowboys and Indians all night long", right (but nowadays such a
statement might probably be considered racialist)? When we talk about
cowboys we mean something to do with the original cowboy in the way I (or
some other people/standard) see it. For most of the time context will do
the job, but now and then you need to explicitly express by what standard
you consider someone/something to be cowboy (the standard place).
But the cowboy culture place I think is non-intrinsical and therefore
unnecessary when I think about it (you could as well express this with
kauvboi kulnu, so I delete it).

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