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).