History: Letters as themselves

Source of version: 1 (current)

''Admin note: This page contains the þ (thorn) character, which !MacRoman doesn't have. Exercise caution editing this page from a Macintosh.'' To say "the letter t" we say "me'o ty.", because "ty." by itself means the referent of "t", by default the last thing referred to whose name or description begins with "t". ''The above is exactly according to ((the Book)).'' ''Doesn't that mean ''the mekso t'', i.e., ''t'' considered as a mathematical expression? What's wrong with ''ty.bu''?'' * ''ty.bu'' is also a letter - one named with the Lojban word ''ty'', which only incidentally is another letter. ''ty.bu'' is (see ((Woldy)) 17.5) the name of the "thorn" (__þ__) character. Using it alone in a Lojban sentence would make it mean "the last thing referred to which (very improbably) began with þ." ** To use ''ty.bu'' as the name of any ideograph other than the letter ''t'' would be obfuscatory. Stop me if I'm too radical, but I think when a meaning is 100% obvious and straightforward, we should consider accepting it.] ** You're missing it. ''ty.'' is the name for the letter __t__, not ''ty.bu.'' It also happens that anything-''bu'' is a letter also, so it is being proposed to use the letter ''ty.bu'', which is presumably distinct from the letter ''ty'', to refer to thorn. (Mind you, using it alone in a sentence would be using is as a pro-sumti, referring to some thing which we are labeling with that letter, not the letter itself, hence the stuff about quoting it with ''me'o''). ** Thorn is more accurately .y'y.bu - /T/ is not a stop. It is an allowed variant of ' and should be written as ' rather than t as writing /T/ as a symbol that can only mean /t/ prevents people from pronouncing it correctly. *** Huh? Thorn is a variant of '? And people hassle me about using h as a variant of '?? Oh, you mean the __sound__ that thorn makes is an allowed variant of '. That doesn't make it the same letter. **** No, what I said was /T/ is a variant of ' - thus Thorn should be transliterated with a ' and is thus better as .y'y.bu. ***** ''.y'y.bu'' already is the letter __h__. *However, I find ''me'o ty.'' to be a bit unpleasant as well. What about ''zo ty.''? **''zo ty.'' is the word "ty.", not the letter 't'. How do we say "the sound of the letter t"? ''le sance be tu'a ty'' le sance be tu'a me'o ty, if anything. ''nalvokykai je molcrane dirsna (see ((phonetics)))'' How do we say "J. L. B. Smith"? (He identified the ((gombesa)) as a coelacanth.) Like most questions about names, this one has no definite answers, but ''jylybys. smit.'' probably communicates fairly well. If precision counts, then there is nothing for it but ''la'o greg. J. L. B. Smith .greg.''