Thou Shalt Not Kill^H^H^H^HMurder

While meta-moderating on use Perl, I came across an interesting journal entry which discussed whether the sixth commandment condemns killing (i.e. all taking of life) or murdering (i.e. unlawful taking of life).

I had also been taught that the meaning was closer to "murder" (though the explanation I had heard was that in KJV times, ca. 1600, the meaning of "kill" was narrower and corresponded better to what we call "murder" these days, with the general-purpose shedding-of-life verb being "slay").

Of particular interest, I felt, was one comment in that discussion where jdavidb talks about kill, murder, and translations, and points to a Google search he did as well as one of the search results, which is a document by (as far as I can tell) a Jewish scholar illuminating the situation and claiming that the misconception was far older than KJV times and was already present in Jerome's Vulgate.

Subjunctives

Recently on lojban-list, people were talking about subjunctives. One person brought up Spanish and how the subjunctive is used there; the example he gave is:

Also, consider the Spanish sentence "Busco una mujer que sea guapa". It means "I'm looking for a woman who is beautiful", but because the subjunctive "sea" is used rather than the indicative "es", it indicates that there is not a specific woman. "Busco una mujer que es guapa" would be a (rather wordy) way of saying that there is a woman I am looking for and that she is beautiful. (Notice how elegantly Spanish handles the old Lojban argument about "Any"!) This is a use of the subjunctive for which there is no parallel in English. We have to guess from context whether "I'm looking for a woman who is beautiful" means that there is a specific woman I seek or not.

That reminded me immediately of this bit from Mark Rosenfelder's grammar of Cadhinor and Cuêzi ("PreCadh.doc"):

In some cases the definiteness of the referent is conveyed by the choice of definite or remote aspect:

Urestu kae coronda emetes [REMOTE] telnai.
I'm looking for a man who speaks Kurundasti (one may not exist).

Urestu kae coronda emes [DEFINITE] telnai.
I'm looking for the (known) man who speaks Kurundasti.

The Native Grammar of Cadhinor that's available on the web has a similar, but not so striking, example:

Various are the uses of the remote mood, including: […] Indefinite references: ELORION PRADE TELNEMET. The king is looking for an honest man.

I presume that Spanish is where he got part of the inspiration for that from.

When I thought about it some more, I'm pretty sure that Greek also conveys the distinction in the same manner:

Ψάχνω μια γυναίκα που να είναι όμορφη
I'm looking for a woman who is beautiful (any woman; not a specific one)

Ψάχνω μια γυναίκα που είναι όμορφη
I'm looking for a woman who is beautiful (and I have a particular woman in mind)

The difference is the να, which is used in subjunctive constructions (which are otherwise indistinguishable in Modern Greek spelling, though slightly older spelling reflects the difference [which is not reflected in pronunciation], e.g. έχει - να έχη, έχομε - να έχωμε).

On the other hand, German, which still has a subjunctive (or does it? I think the Konjunktiv is what is called subjunctive in English, but I could be wrong), probably wouldn't use it like that. I'd always say "Ich suche eine Frau, die hübsch ist" either way, regardless of whether I had a specific woman in mind or not. "Ich suche eine Frau, die hübsch sei" sounds weird; if it is grammatical and has meaning at all, I'd interpret it not as "I'm looking for a woman who is beautiful (any woman)" but rather as "I'm looking for a specific woman who, it is claimed, is beautiful"; that is, the conjunctive is used to express doubt as to whether the attribute applies to her rather than as to whether such a specific woman exists. (The same form used in reported speech: "Er sagte, dass sie hübsch sei", "He said that she is beautiful".)

What about French? Is a distinction made between "Je recherche une femme qui est belle" and "Je recherche une femme qui soit belle"? Are both correct, or only one (which one?)? If both: is the distinction the same as in Spanish and Greek?

Journal anniversary :: train tickets :: phone card :: dentist :: pinkbacks :: home teaching

Well, General Conference is coming up again… this must mean that it's nearly my journal's anniversary, since I'm fairly sure the first thing I wrote in here is some notes from last year's autumn General Conference.

*checks* Ah, yes. Journal created 2 October 2002, first entry on 7 October 2002.

Yesterday, I went to inquire what train tickets to Kiel and back cost, for when we're visiting Debora in ten days' time. All fairly confusing. The options I was given were:

• Take the InterCity; this would cost €45 there and back for two people with cheap tickets (which means we'd have to settle on a certain train)
• Go there by Schleswig-Holstein-Ticket (€21) and back by Schönes-Wochenende-Ticket (€28): total €29
• Go there by Schleswig-Holsten-Ticket and back by small group ticket (Kleingruppenkarte) zone 12 (€25): total €46

And doing some research at home, I saw that I could save even more money by buying a zone 10 Kleingruppenkarte on the way back, which won't get us all the way to Hamburg but as far as Elmshorn, and from there we can both ride on my ticket since it'll be a Sunday. That'll be €21.40 for the way back or €42.40 both ways. And if I buy the Schleswig-Holsten-Ticket in advance, we can use it to ride to the main station, since it's valid in the local public transport network as well.

I also transferred the money on my old phone card (which expired about a year ago) to a new one; it was nearly full (11.01 DM of 12 DM) so that was good. Now I have another two years to spend the €5.63 they gave me… though given how seldomly I use public telephones, I might have to transfer at least some of that money to a new card.

In the evening, I had a dentist's appointment. One of my teeth was nagging me; apparently, something had caught in a little pouch between my tooth and gum and was irritating me, but it came out by myself, so the dentist just applied a little ointment to the spot and did a general check-up. Which was good because I hadn't been this year, and you have to go yearly for at least five consecutive years in order to get extra money from the health insurance.

I read that America is planning to introduce coloured banknotes (one story here). Amusing, since I've seen a fair number of Americans mock European banknotes as "Monopoly money" because it comes in different colours. According to one news story, some are calling the new peach-coloured $20 bill a "pinkback", by analogy with "greenback".

This evening, I tried to go home teach Sonny again, but he had to work longer. A little annoying, since Thomas, the elders, and I had come in vain. Perhaps we should try to teach him on Sundays after church, since he can't tell in advance how long he'll have to work each day.