ceigered:I personally just want to use what we've got and take merciless advantage of the features the language offers (but with my penchant for minimalism being expressed - which is related to why I don't like "pro tio ke").

Experimenting too much makes what you say unclear and people have a hard time understanding you. This is why some people hold (rigidly, in your opinion) to some traditional forms. Because everyone knows and understands them, and they've been used for more than a hundred years.

You're within your rights to "take merciless advantage" of the features, as you put it. But you can't criticize others for disagreeing with you. You can talk how you want to talk, they can talk how they want to talk.

I'm not calling you a reformist, but I'm going to repeat to you what I've told many a reformist - try learning the language as it is. Learn it thoroughly. Reach a point where you're comfortable discussing most topics in esperanto, maybe not fluent, but comfortable with the language. And then start introducing some of your "taking merciless advantage" of what's already in Esperanto.

I mean this in a nice way but you lack a sense of what is likely or not likely to be understood in Esperanto. Not just you personally, but every beginning speaker who doesn't have much experience. Part of taking advantage of Esperanto's inbuilt features, for the purpose of creativity or whatever, is recognizing the line between "Wow that's such a cool way of saying that!!!" and "What the heck did that guy just say, he makes no sense???" Experience with the language gives a good sense of what is or isn't likely to be understood. And speaking the language relatively well helps people to understand that you are doing these things on purpose, not by mistake. For example if you have a huge paragraph of text chock full of errors, and you said "pro ke", I would assume that it was a mistake, and you meant "por ke". If someone speaks badly, it's hard to distinguish between a nifty within-the-rules linguistic innovation, and a mistake where someone really meant to say something else.

Spending more time in the Esperanto forum, as sudanglo suggests, would give you some excellent practice.

Re my contributions or even passive involvement in the EO forums, I haven't done much in a while as I'm trying to keep my head stuck only in Indonesian and Japanese (I've been mixing up in my mind all 3 languages (that is incl. EO)).

But yes, I apologise for all that.

adrideo:Why wouldn't we expect and want the language to evolve as any other language would?

Because Esperanto is expected to allow logical constructs even when illogical ones are more common. That's one of its features. If some constructs are arbitrarily disallowed, one of the most compelling pro-Esperanto arguments disappears.

“Pro ke” sounds to me too Portuguese-ish (or Spanish-ish). In Portuguese we have:
Kial → Por que? (pro kio?)
Ĉar → porque... (pro ke...)
(“por que” and “porque” sound the same)

If I said "pro ke", I would feel as if I were translating word for word from Portuguese. A part of my brain would say to me: “Say simply ĉar!”

If someone else says “pro ke”, then it's fine to me. It's simply logical

marcuscf:
Because Esperanto is expected to allow logical constructs even when illogical ones are more common. That's one of its features. If some constructs are arbitrarily disallowed, one of the most compelling pro-Esperanto arguments disappears.

That's well put, and I agree with you.

For beginners, it's treacherous, because they typically have little idea as to what's "logical" and what isn't. That is, they don't see what the actual rules of the language allow and what they don't.

I'm no beginner, but I still find grammatical or semantic situations in Esperanto that puzzle me.

Okay, so to clarify, I see:
[LISTO]
Mi (faras ion), ĉar (vi faras ion).
Mi amas vin, ĉar vi aŭskultas min.
Mi respektis vin, ĉar vi sciigis min.
Mi malamas vin, ĉar vi diris tion.[/list]and:
[LISTO]
Mi (faras ion) pro via (noun form of a verb).
Mi amas vin pro via aŭskultado.
Dankon pro via helpo.
Mi respektis vin pro via informo.[/list]And also:
[LISTO]
Dankon ke vi helpis min.
Mi malamas ke vi diris tion.[/list]And:
[LISTO]
Mi respektis vin por via sciigo.[/list]All of which TMK are correct.
I also heard a lot of "pro tio, ke" and "pro ke" banter that I was told to stick my fingers in my ears because the grown-ups are talking... This is just sarcasm!, I realize that some phrases may be awkward and others may be incorrect so until I fully understand an exact phrase then I shouldn't go around using it incorrectly.

page4of3:I also heard a lot of "pro tio, ke" and "pro ke" banter that I was told to stick my fingers in my ears because the grown-ups are talking...

Hahaha! Good analogy (although "adult" doesn't really suit me )! But yeah, with just ĉar (+sentence) and pro (+noun phrase), you can't go wrong!

I'm no beginner, but I still find grammatical or semantic situations in Esperanto that puzzle me.

Could you give some examples, Todd

sudanglo:

I'm no beginner, but I still find grammatical or semantic situations in Esperanto that puzzle me.

Could you give some examples, Todd

Hmmm...I'll have to think about it. Usually, if it's a grammatical situation, I quickly shift to some other way to say what I want, and just forget about it. Semantic puzzles are usually just "missing word" cases. There's something I want to say, and I can't find the Esperanto expression that "feels right".

Here's a philosophical example: In English, we have the words "refer" and "mean", and they can be applied to both people and words. That is, words refer to things, and people refer to things by means of words.

The verb aludi exists in Esperanto, but it really isn't quite the same as "refer". My sense is that aludi is something that only people do, as in the cognate expression "allude to". This is narrower than the general sense of "refer"--or at least I think it is.

This leaves me a bit puzzled about how to say something like "The word 'person' doesn't refer only to humans."

T0dd:
This leaves me a bit puzzled about how to say something like "The word 'person' doesn't refer only to humans."

La vorto "persono" ne signifas nur homojn.

I sometimes use "celi" for that translation of "mean".

La vorto "persono" ne celas nur homojn.