Re: response to Steven Belknap on language baselines and stability (long)

[Scott Brickner <sjb@UNIVERSE.DIGEX.NET>]

Logical Language Group writes:
>Upon baselining, there will be a 5 year period where the ONLY
>change permitted will be of the "language exploration" variety.  If
>anything comes up that is so serious as to require formal change during
>the 5 year period, the baseline experiment will be considered a failure,
>and we will have to decide what to do then.  Undoubtedly the community
>will be considerably different than it is now, and we cannot decide now
>what we will do then.

An approach that communications protocols in computers have taken to
coping with this sort of thing is to have some standard way of saying
"what I'm about to say is non-standard", after which, the listener may
decide whether he can cope with the change.

The simplest example of this is the "x-" prefix that started with SMTP,
and has worked its way (via MIME) into HTTP and other places.

Perhaps it would be simplest to create a cmavo in selma'o UI or BAhE or
something that would scope to the construct upon which it is attached
and indicate that it's non-approved usage.

Of course, I notice that za'e looks kinda similar to that anyway...
I'm not proficient enough to figure out its scope, though.

In general, I agree with lojbab's approach.  It seems that there's
little enough in all of the change proposals I've seen that represent
things that you just can't say in lojban, though you may need more
words.

I'd say, try it with more words, and if you still can't do it, make up
a "slang" way to do it and mark it with "za'e".  Someone else may
suggest how to do it, or pick up your way of doing it.

Eventually, if too many "za'e"s appear in common text, it provides
something concrete for any "academy of right-thinking lojbi" to
discuss.

If you find that a particular usage becomes very popular, do something
like {za'exito'i <explanation of non-standard usage> toi} and attach
it to the whole text (on the no'i or something).