writing conventions
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Some conventions used when talking about Lojban in English, for instance on IRC or in mailing lists. At least, these are the ones that I usually use.
- {…} is used to quote Lojban text. Alternatively Lojban text is written in bold.
- *{…} is used for incorrect Lojban text.
- ?{…} is used for questionable text (either a subject of debate, or to quote without asserting correctness, for instance, asking a student what, if anything, the text would mean).
- !{…} is used for text that parses, but has a surprising or wrong meaning (one not intended).
- […] is used to indicate words (usually terminators or {cu}) that can be included or omitted without changing the parse.
- -…- is used for quoting rafsi, like -mib-, the rafsi for {mi}
- "…" is used for quoting English. The *, ?, and ! modifiers can be applied if needed.
- ⟨…⟩ is used for quoting sequences of characters. "No, you couldn't use ⟨la⟩ in a cmevla pre-Dot Side."
- † is used to qualify a statement, to mean "This isn't actually true, but it's close enough for the current purposes." "cmevla can only† be used as names, but not all names are cmevla."
- ‡ is used for "I don't know whether this is actually precisely true or not, but it's close enough for now." "You use ZOI, then any‡ Lojban word as a delimiter…" (Really? What about {bu}? What about {si}? What about {fa'o}?)