Loyal as one pleases

A pretty word and an awesomely constructed word today!

The pretty word is “lojali”:

• Meaning: “to be loyal”, from “lojala” meaning “loyal, faithful”.
• Pronunciation: loy-AL-ee
• IPA: loj’ali

Don’t you think it looks quite interesting having the tall stalks of the “l”s equally spaced either side of the low tail of the “j”? That plus its very short, snappy syllables finishing on a subtle “i”, makes for a pretty word indeed!

The awesomely constructed word is “laŭplaĉe”:

• Meaning: “as one pleases” from “laŭ” meaning “according to, along, by”, and “plaĉe” meaning “pleasingly, in a pleasing way”. So “laŭplaĉe” is like “according to a pleasing manner, how one pleases”.
• Example: vi povas elekti laŭplaĉe = you can choose as you please
• Pronunciation: lau-PLA-che
• IPA: law’platʃe

Such simple roots smooshed together to create a versatile word. In English, to express the same idea we have to change the words a bit in different circumstances, notice how “as one pleases” must became “as you please” in the example sentence. But “laŭplaĉe” will always mean that the subject of an action is doing said action according to how they please. Mojosa.

Oh the possibilities

There’s a sneaky word that has the possibility of tripping you up when translating to Esperanto, especially coming from an English background!

However, instead of Esperanto being the playground bully waiting to trip up poor awkward English, Esperanto is once again helping us to be more concise.

Take a look at the suffix “-ebl”, here’s a post of mine on it.

Why talk about it again? Because this time, it’s about using it as fully fledged root word.

• Ebla = possible

So here it is. How might you translate “possibility” into Esperanto? Here’s three possibilities:

• Eblo = possibility
• Eblaĵo = possibility
• Ebleco = possibility

Other Esperanto words might set you up for trouble here:

• Kulpa = guilty, culpable
• Kulpo = blame, guilt
• Kulpeco = culpability

Why does “eco” correspond to “-bility” (as with loads of other words too, I suspect), but we can get “possibility” from all three of those endings?

The answer is this. It’s quite helpful in a bunch of cases to think of Esperanto affixes to loosely correspond to common endings in English (at least when you’re starting out), like how “e” creates adverbs in Esperanto similarly to how “ly” creates them sometimes in English (rapida = quick; rapide = quickly), like how “-ness” or “-bility” in English are often similar to “-ec” in Esperanto. However, this is only a rule of thumb. One has to understand what you actually mean by adding “eco”.

In the case with “possibility”, we English use this word to cover the meaning of all three of those alternatives! It’s not like “blame” versus “culpability”.

“Eblaĵo” and “Ebleco” is where we really have to drive the difference:

• “Eblaĵo” refers to a thing that is possible. “Aĵ” is a suffix, which usually denotes a concrete thing, so “eblaĵo” is “something which is possible, a possibility”.
• Tio estas eblaĵo = That’s a possibility; that’s a possible-thing
• La mondo estas plena de eblaĵoj = The world is full of possibilities/possible-things
• “Ebleco” refers to the property of possible-ness: how possible something is. “Ec” is a suffix, which usually denotes a property or quality of something, not the something itself. You could therefore talk about the “ebleco” of an “eblaĵo”.
• Tio havas fortan eblecon = That has a strong possibility (“tio” refers to an “eblaĵo”, and “ebleco” is talking about the level of possibility it has).
• “Eblo” I think out of usage tends to refer to “eblaĵo”, but technically it is the generic noun form of “possible”, which can mean either “ebleco” or “eblaĵo”. So if you’re ever unsure, just use “eblo”.

Reading material on the subject from the PMEG: 1, 2

A very touching nostril

Many apologies for such a long and unexpected absence… Slowly pulling myself together! Hmm, how would you express that in Esperanto… Is it very idiomatic English? Or do you see it in other languages?

We do have “tiri” = “to drag,draw,pull, tug”, and so “kuntiri” = “to draw/drag/tug/pull together”. So, could one use “sin kuntiri” = “to pull oneself together” do you think?

• Mi malrapide kuntiras min = I’m slowly pulling myself together

I quite like the metaphor of being all in pieces, and tugging everything back in place. So given that the metaphor in itself makes sense, then perhaps it’s permissible.

Anyways, before I got sidetracked, I was about to put a couple words all up in your faces!

The first of which is “kortuŝa” (pronounced: “kor-TOOSH-a”; IPA: “kor’tuʃa”), which means “moving/touching” (as in a thing that evokes emotion). This word is mojosa for two reasons!

The first being that in my opinion the sound is pleasant, and oddly matches how I think “touching” should sound. The “tuŝa” is just really gentle and pleasant, and with the addition of “kor” it’s like a strong starting note.

Secondly, its construction is pretty damn cool. “Tuŝi” means “to touch”, and “koro” is heart. Lump them together, and make it an adjective with an “a”, and you get a description of something that touches your heart!

The next word is “naztruo” (pronounced: “naz-TROO-o”; IPA:”naz’truo”), which means “nostril”. I simply found this word incredibly amusing because it’s literally made up of “nazo” = “nose” and “truo” = “hole”. So we have “nose-hole”!