The I Can Eat Glass Project http://hcs.harvard.edu/~igp/glass.html gives translations of "I can eat glass, it doesn't hurt me" in many languages, including Lojban. (Note that the English "hurt" here is ambiguous; it could mean either "harm" or "cause pain".)
Unfortunately, the Lojban translation is incorrect: mi ka'e citka loi blaci .i la'edi'u na xrani mi
Michael Helsem gives the brief: .e'e gu'e blaci citka ginai cortu
I suggest the direct: mi kakne le nu citka loi blaci kei noi na xrani
Shorter (and thus untrue to the rambling original): mi ka'e nalxai citka loi blaci
Shortest I see: e'e nalxai blacycti
There are a lot of ways to say things!
Discussed on the list:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lojban/message/4296 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lojban/message/4310
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lojban/message/7392
mi'e jezrax
lo'edu'u mi citka lo blaci kei ge mi se kakne gi na xrani mi
- du'u is wrong. I think this would be better with ye olde heavy shift, that is to say, best move the long part to the end. mi kakne jenai selxai le nu citka loi blaci This version needs reworking if you prefer cortu over xrani because of different terbri. mi'e jezrax
- I agree that a heavy-shifted version is generally preferable, but it greatly distorts the sequence of information presentation of the original. le nu is certainly incorrect by my understanding of the English, as no specific event is being referred to; in the context of the present sentence, lo'e would probably be the safest gadri choice. As for whether nu is preferable to du'u, this is an unresolved issue that, hopefully, will eventually be resolved by jboske.
- OK, wanting to keep the order is a good reason. I agree that lo'e is more precise than le. But du'u is simply wrong. It leaves the meaning as "the fact that I can eat glass does not hurt me," which has the incorrect property of being true! mi'e jezrax
- Well, you should have said "the fact that I eat glass is something I am capable of and does not hurt me". A mere proposition doesn't hurt us, but its being true does, and sometimes a du'u sumti is interpreted as "x2's being true". I won't debate the pros and cons of nu here, because it's too problematic an issue to do it justice. But I think you're probably right that lo'e nu is best.
- It is difficult to argue that le is wrong, because the English original is vague. Suppose the conversation was, "I can eat glass. I know because I've done it," then "le nu..." could be taken as referring to specific actual past events of eating glass. Similarly for "I can eat glass. Watch this!" which refers to a specific future event, and "I'll bet you a quarter I can eat glass," which refers to a specific hypothetical event. If the English said, "in the general case, I can eat glass" then lo'e would be dead on. That's a reasonable interpretation, and one that some people have assumed, but it's not the only one--we simply do not know what the speaker had in mind, especially not a speaker as crazy as this. mi'e jezrax
- Can one be capable of a specific nu? I can't seem to make sense of anything but kakne lo'e nu. --And
- That's unclear to me. I think it depends on what exactly it means for le to be "specific". You might argue when you say kakne le nu that you were referring to the specific, though unknown, events of eating glass where you succeed; "I can eat glass, sometimes, and those are the times I'm talking about." That's some kind of specificity, though vague, and people could argue forever about whether it counted as truly specific. There doesn't seem to be any way to pin it down, so I guess usage will have to decide how specific you have to be to use le. mi'e jezrax
- 'Specific' is a technical term (also called 'referential'. It is part of the meaning of e-gadri. Here is not the place to discuss it, but in brief, it means that you have certain particular events of my eating glass in mind. The sentence would be false only if I were incapable of those specific events. But to me it doesn't make sense to be capable of a specific event: one is capable of realizing an instance — any instance — of some generic class of events. Anyway, I'm now running up against the limits of how far I've thought all these issues through so far, so I'll leave it by saying that at least for the time being le nu is not demonstrably incorrect (and may eventually prove to be demonstrably correct). --And
what exactly is the problem with the original answer!!!
i'm capable of eating the mass really is glass - the referent of the last utterance didn't hurt me!
it is fine!!!!! ko smaji o'onai y o'onaisai
the lojban parrot sketch uses la'e in the same way!!!!!!