Putting hands into pockets

["61510::GILSON" <cbmvax!uunet!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!gilson!61510.decnet>]

John Cowan writes:

>(Note that English is over-specific by Lojban standards in saying "his cousin".
>and "his nose".  Likewise, English idiomatically says "He put his hands in his
>pockets": to speakers of other languages, the question naturally arises
>"Whose pockets would he put his hands in?", and even more peculiar, "Whose
>hands would he put in his pockets?".)

Well, although the normal thing for me to do is move my _own_ hands and put them
in my _own_ pocket, if I was a pickpocket, I'd be putting my hands into someone
else's pocket. And if I was annoyed with a child waving his hand constantly, I
could conceivably grab the child's hand and jam it into his pocket. (I could
even jam Billy's hand into Mike's pocket if they were side by side, though
that _would_ be a little peculiar!) So "X puts Y's hand into Z's pocket" does
not require identity of X, Y, and Z even in practical situations, and Lojban
allows even for impractical situations (remember an earlier discussion about
"You're looking very Canadian today"?).

                                                  Bruce