From Lognet, issue 91/2.
Several of our regular columns got squeezed out this time. There are lots of letters, many with questions that deserved public answering. Lo Cninu Purda is also large, mainly because of the spillover from Dr. McIvor's and my Winter's work on the Eaton Jury. And we got a long letter from Mark Zacharias, an engineer, suggesting that it isn't time to "shoot the engineer"as Bill Gober suggested we do in LN91/1. Mark's argument, too, deserved a public answer. To make room for these pieces, Sau La Keugru, Lo Nable, and Lo Nurvia Logla got squeezed out; but they will all be back next time.
In connection with Lo Nurvia, the poem in last issue's column was Walt Whitman's "When I Heard the Learned Astronomer...", as many of you recognized. You can look it up in any library if you're anxious to see how you did. A full back-translation of the Loglan structures will be published in LN91/3.
The real reason things are squeezed these days is that our 20-page format—dictated, you'll recall, by that one-ounce limit we're trying to stick to while we're still using first class postage—is just too small! We have so many things to tell you these days there just isn't room for them all in a 20-page book. There's probably only one solution to the size problem so long as we're poor, and that's to grow! As soon as we have 200 members—we have about 110 now, so we're on the downhill side—we can buy a non-profit permit and use bulk-mail again. When that happens, our mailing costs will go way down; and because we'll be paying for bulk and not by the piece,we can print any size issue we like.
So help us grow, Logli, and Lognet can grow with us. Network for us; chat us up with your friends and co-workers. Also, if you can possibly contribute a little money to our Worldwide SA Ad, that, too, will hasten growth. When we run that ad, we'll be casting our net wide again, and hopefully we'll haul in a whole new batch of wriggling log-fish.
In connection with the SA ad, I've received some good news recently that may mean that I'll be able to reloan The Institute those $6,000 which it repaid me last year. If so, we'll buy that SA ad, and that should steepen our growth curve once more.
There's more good news. My wife and I are moving back to San Diego this summer. The Institute, of course, will go with us. The bulk of our members live on the U.S. West Coast these days; so we can expect to see more activity around The Institute. Don't worry about addresses yet. The tenants at 1701 will forward TLI mail indefinitely, and the new address will go on all our publications starting this summer. I look forward to visiting with you West Coast logli once again!
There's still more good news. Dr. McIvor and I actually finished the Eaton Jury Work last winter. We had done about 20% of it, you'll recall, that first winter (1989-90); so that left 80% for the second season. Obviously we got better! RAM tells me that he now has the new dictionary file just about ready to send out to his editors, and that it now consists of 6,300 L-E entries and 22,000 E-L ones. That's without the panel of about 1,500 science words which I used to build and test the borrowing algorithm, as well as Steve Rice's recent cnupua.
About 20 logli wrote in for RAM's "test kit" for dictionary editors, and 5 have actually been "signed on". Let me welcome Bill Gober, James Jennings, Mark Zacharias, Wes Parsons and of course Steve Rice to this important work. There's room for even more editors. So get your kit materials back to RAM, Logli, or write him for them if you haven't yet, if you care to be part of his team for putting the finishing touches on our new dictionary.
Finally, what is in some ways the best news of all. Dr. McIvor and I offered Steve Rice a chair on the Loglan Academy, and he accepted. Steve has already brought great insights and fine scholarly judgement to our deliberations, and we're confident he'll make a strong and unique contribution to the work of the Keugru in the years to come. Welcome, Steve, to yet one more Loglan-sustaining role!
This is not the end of it, Logli. We'll take on additional academists—what can we call them? Lenkeu? "Language-caretakers?"—at the same rate as they develop. The more lenkeu we have, the better care they can take of our language.
Speaking of care-taking, the last item I can squeeze into this SLS is perhaps the most important one: The Keugru has decided, after prolonged and care-full study, to (1) reject Dr. McIvor's proposal for a "general declension" and (2) accept his proposal for an "animal" one, the latter to function like the ethnic declension we adopted in 1982; see NB2:72. The Keugru found that the GD, if adopted, would necessitate a major revision of the affix system, but that the AD, like the ED before it, is truly additive and will have no effect on what people already know. There'll be more on using the animal declension next time; but you deserve to know our decision on this long-standing issue now.
A finished L1 Index will be ready for shipping in June; you may order now. It will be $5 plus $3 P & H for any sized order. Note that NB3 is still available at $18.70, other items at the old prices.—JCB