pu, ku & su - A Reasonable Redefinition

The following is only a suggestion and shouldn't be taken to be definitive unless the community decides to adopt this.

pu

Primary Meaning: (interacting with) Toki Pona: the Language of Good (book)

Secondary Meanings: (interacting with) toki pona learning material, toki pona lessons, toki pona courses, toki pona teaching/teachers; learning material, lessons, courses, teaching/teachers

Tertiary Meanings: official, standard, orthodox, traditional; pure, purist; clear; core; prescriptivist

Examples: 

• mi pu - I am reading Toki Pona: The Language of Good
• pu Kekan San / pu pi jan Kekan San - the lessons made by Greg-Dan
• pu pi luka pona - the learning materials of Luka Pona Sign Language
• mi pu e toki mi - I align my dialect with conventional toki pona dialects / I set my speech in the academic style. 

ku

Primary Meaning: (interacting with) Toki Pona Dictionary: 2 (Official Toki Pona) (book)

Secondary Meanings: (interacting with) toki pona dictionaries, toki pona grammars, toki pona surveys, toki pona polls; dictionaries, grammars, surveys, polls

Tertiary Meanings:  accepted; widespread, known, meme, shared knowledge; supplementary; descriptivist

Examples: 

• nimi kalamARR li lon ku - The word for pirate speech is in Toki Pona Dictionary: 2 (Official Toki Pona)
• ku Wikipesija - Wikipedia as a communal project
• mi ku Wikipesija e kijetesantakalu - I look up raccoons on Wikipedia 
• sona ni li ku -  this knowledge is widely known/accepted

su

Primary Meaning: (interacting with) The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Toki Pona edition): 3 (Official Toki Pona)

Secondary Meanings: (interacting with) toki pona fiction, toki pona media; fiction, media

Tertiary Meanings: fictional, made up; creative, novel, poetic; applied  

Examples:

• lipu su li pona a! - The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Toki Pona edition): 3 (Official Toki Pona) is great! 
• soweli su - fictional animal
• su meli olin moli - the book Toki Pona Stories: meli olin moli by Fingtam Languages
• sitelen su Wanpi ale li musi a - All adaptations of One Piece are fun.

Mini Essay

toki pona has an internal contradiction. on the one hand it is the language of the community. on the other hand it is inextricably linked to the works of jan Sonja, both in its origins and as cultural touchstones that most people reference for language authority and guidence.

this is a tension that mirrors the wider debate of Prescriptivism vs Descriptivism; where Prescriptivism is the attempted application of official standards in language, and Descriptivism is the attempt to describe language as it is used. most linguists and a number of dictionaries / grammars / etc use Descriptivism, as their job is to describe observe and describe language - and Prescriptivism is harmful to those aims (and arguably harmful to society as a whole). however most people hold Prescriptivist beliefs, and many institutions (including school systems) enforce those standards, as they judge what is correct and incorrect - bristling at and correcting what they see as incorrect language. 

thus the linguist portion of toki pona and a number of other laypeople want more Descriptivism, whereas the general cultural default most people have is Prescriptivism - and thus they seek authority. put simply we have been taught all our lives to be Prescriptivists and the main books provide a comfortable blanket of clarity for us.

here I want to try and shift the needle a little by looking at the terms "pu", "ku" and "su";

1. pu - interacting with Toki Pona: the Language of Good (book)
2. ku - interacting with Toki Pona Dictionary: 2 (Official Toki Pona) (book)
3. su - interacting with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Toki Pona edition): 3 (Official Toki Pona) (book)

in addition to this these words are also sometimes used to refer to the books themselves. these words epitomise toki pona's relationship with the official books. I use the word 'official' because that is what they are called in many places - despite the term being resisted in the community. to have three whole words out of one hundred and something used to reference individual books is, on its face, quite silly - but the context clarifies why we got here.

I don't want overly criticise jan Sonja here. toki pona is more than simply one thing. it is minimalist, fun, funny, enjoyable, usable - and now it is a living language. these words make sense in their context. their origins make sense initially as a word a fun word made up for fun and continuation of that joke. and their continued usage makes sense as these books are very important cultural touchstones that get referenced a lot. and importantly; these words are fun! they should not be seen as the enemy.

one way that many resolve this is by dropping the words - but keeping them as proper adjectives only and capitalising them accordingly. thus they refer to the books as lipu Pu, lipu Ku and lipu Su. however the words are still in use as content words not just names - and so a discussion to modify their meanings has existed quietly in the background for a while.

a number of suggestions for alternatives of what pu / ku / su could mean are good - however any real change in meaning will have to contend with the fact that they are used by people already like this and will resist change. if you use them in a new way that can lead to confusion - and we can't just demand people change how they speak, both because it never works and because it is against the aim of Descriptivism.

so to mix the old and new meanings - the above definitions have been formulated to combine new and old. the core meanings will remain these central books - but by the addition of modifiers and innovative usages of these words - new meanings can be extracted from them. 

all three definitions are structured like so:

Primary Meaning: (interacting with) the official book

Secondary Meanings: (interacting with) toki pona specific material similar to the official book; general material similar to the book

Tertiary Meanings: descriptions derived from views about the book

the secondary and tertiary meanings were suggested and discussed in the sona musi channel of the ma pona pi toki pona Discord server - and are themselves a community effort. I think that these are reasonable suggestions that instinctively make sense without even reading these new definitions - instead each tier compliments each-other. in general the new meanings are all "like the official book" in some way.

notably these are only suggestions to give you food for thought - if you like them then feel free to use them, if not feel free to ignore them 

o pona!