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I Can Eat Glass
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- OJFord 3y agoI haven't come across this one before, a similar project is https://omniglot.com/language/phrases/hovercraft.htm https://omniglot.com/language/phrases/hovercraft.htm ('my hovercraft is full of eels' from Monty Python's Flying Circus)
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- lafar6503 3y agoWhere are your howitzers?
- dctoedt 3y agoAnd the very first cold-open sketch on the very first episode of Saturday Night Live, in October 1975: John Belushi learning to say, "I would like to feed your fingertips to the wolverines." https://www.openculture.com/2021/03/saturday-night-lives-very-first-sketch.html https://www.openculture.com/2021/03/saturday-night-lives-ver...
- szatkus 3y agoThere's even PIE and Sumerian, hilarious.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoHow interesting to use a comma splice in a phrase that's purpose-built for translations. I wonder if that was a deliberate choice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma_splice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma_splice
- abdullahkhalids 3y agoSurprised this article doesn't mention "The king is dead, long live the king!"
- Alifatisk 3y agoHad no idea comma splice was considered error in english writing, has it always been like this?
- OJFord 3y agoThe error IMO would be better described that there's a connective missing - 'so' or 'therefore', etc. - or else with that elided it should be a semicolon rather than a comma.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoIt is strange that Wikipedia claims that this became a meme, yet knowyourmeme.com is completely unaware of its memeness. That website is typically a solid source for the dankest and/or most obscure memes you ever met.
- hunson_abadeer 3y agoI Can Eat Glass was definitely a thing, but in the late 1990s or perhaps very early 2000s. Sites such as knowyourmeme.com don't go nearly as far back.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoThe website was first picked up on the Internet Archive in 1999. I had no trouble finding memes from 1994-1996 on KYM, such as "Dancing Baby", "Ate My Balls", and "Goodtimes Virus". In fact, clicking that "year:1994" turns up 108 results, so they're pretty comprehensive, although they only cover Web-based memes, usually with images, and not Usenet.
- themaninthedark 3y agoThe Everything2 entry is dated April 12 2000.
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- mherdeg 3y agoKnowyourmeme is very late to the meme game. Entire civilizations of memes flourished and decayed on 4chan, fark, Slashdot, YTMND, and the bare metal internet long ago. Bonsai Kitten is lost to the ravages of time.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoI suppose if by "lost" you mean "extremely well documented with 457 thousand views" then yes, Bonsai Kittens are lost forever?
- russellpekala 3y agoI love this. My coworkers and I call ourselves glasseaters since we're all so scrappy. The guy who started this translation project (per the wikipedia) was himself a startup founder https://www.linkedin.com/in/emollick/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/emollick/.
- yellow_lead 3y ago> Saying "I can eat glass, it does not hurt me", however, ensures that the speaker "will be viewed as an insane native, and treated with dignity and respect". Since context is such an important part of many languages, this almost guarantees no one will understand you unless you have perfect pronunciation
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- jandrese 3y ago> Saying "I can eat glass, it does not hurt me", however, ensures that the speaker "will be viewed as an insane native, and treated with dignity and respect". If there is anything rambling insane people get it is dignity and respect.
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- lo_zamoyski 3y agoI think this assumes people are more respectful to their own, at least overtly, than to guests, but this is an incomplete view. In cultures where hospitality is high, guests are treated with a hospitality and patience that is not extended to the locals. Furthermore, foreigners are more likely to be viewed as people unfamiliar with the conventions and customs of the region, and therefore some reasonable patience is shown, whereas locals are expected to be on top of such things. What insane people get isn't dignity and true respect, but avoidance!
- kadoban 3y agoGiven the context, the probability of that being tongue-in-cheek has to be quite high.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoOn second thought, keep your tongue away from your cheeks whilst eating glass, lest it get shredded up.
- version_five 3y agoObviously tongue in cheek but also largely true. Tourists are targets for all kinds of scams. Less so local crazies. Nobody is actually going to belive an obvious foreigner shouting a crazy phrase in accented local language is actually a local, but they still may steer clear and scam someone else (if this was meant to be taken seriously, it obviously isn't). There's that "real Ghostbusters" cartoon where the street toughs ask Egon what he's doing and he said something about ectoplasm or whatever, and one of the toughs asks the leader why he left him alone and he says 'I don't mess with anyone weirder than me"
- pluijzer 3y agoThe nuance of the Dutch translation is slightly wrong, possibly implying eating glass in general doesn't hurt. Just a heads-up for those going to the old archived website in search of medical advice.
- gattilorenz 3y agoIf you go by reported pronunciation it says “hij”, doesn’t it? Just don’t text/write it and it will be ok.
- Semaphor 3y ago2019, 84 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21121982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21121982 Mainly anecdotes about fun language confusions ;)
- carabiner 3y agoinsane -> dignity, respect ?
- jj999 3y agoDignity and respect result from fear. Who would you fear most between the tourist and the insane?
- kiamlaluno 3y ago[dead]
- saghm 3y agoWell, yeah, that's the joke; it's not actually supposed to be a useful resource, but something fun and silly
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- inopinatus 3y agoEnoch Root wants to borrow your bicycle.
- npteljes 3y agoI think it's supposed to be a joke.
- techload 3y agoOnce I met a young man who was able to eat glass, literally. I saw, right in front of me, him break a glass with his teeth, chew the pieces until they were very fine, and swallow everything. To prove that he wasn't hiding the pieces in his mouth, he made a point of opening his mouth wide and showing that he had indeed swallowed them.
- kemayo 3y agoGiven that you don't mention seeing blood, this was almost certainly just someone playing a prank by eating sugar glass. It's slightly thickened melted sugar that you've let set into a thin pane. Looks just like glass, but it's really rock candy and so you can break it up and chew it. https://www.inthekitchenwithmatt.com/edible-sugar-glass https://www.inthekitchenwithmatt.com/edible-sugar-glass
- techload 3y agoNo. It was a glass from the bar, and a thick walled one. There was no blood. He did this thing several times. He did not die, as I met him several years after. It is a glass like this one, common in Brazilian bars: https://youtu.be/xwrn2h8iAdw https://youtu.be/xwrn2h8iAdw
- kadoban 3y agoI'd still think it's more likely it was a magic trick or scam.
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- techload 3y agoThere are a lot of people who do this, amazing and unbelievable as it may seem. https://youtu.be/WUuMybRysjE https://youtu.be/WUuMybRysjE https://youtu.be/O8ifaTHbMTo https://youtu.be/O8ifaTHbMTo https://youtu.be/JFnGsGnlkAI https://youtu.be/JFnGsGnlkAI https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5OdkhtMEqMo?feature=share https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5OdkhtMEqMo?feature=share
- codezero 3y agoI used to play online games at an hour when a lot of Japanese players were online, I asked my sister who was studying Japanese for some phrases to say and this was one of them. Now I know where she got it from! I also used this phrase when I was visiting Australia and met two Japanese guys at a bar, they thought it was hilarious.
- twism 3y agoI had tons of friends who could do this literally in primary school (Nigeria) .. and it was normal. It's funny the things you pick up as a kid in Nigeria that people look at you in amazement when you do it. For instance, the awes I get when I crack open a beer bottle with my teeth. Granted every kid in Nigeria could do this (soda bottles) since they were 6.
- twism 3y agoCome to think of it I'm now curious how this is possible. With cracking open bottle tops, it is all leverage (not strength, power, or some physical gift) but I would think chewing glass has got to be some special type of skill or physical ability. I didn't have a curious mind for it then since I didn't think it was a special skill although I did not dare try it as it seemed to me as dangerous as it sounded
- throw1234651234 3y agoAll fun and games until a piece lodges in your throat. A lot of professional performers mostly count on things sitting right, and then die when they don't. E.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirin_Dajo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirin_Dajo
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoThen again, there's Stevie Starr, who's passed the ripe old age of 60, and still going strong with swallowing and regurgitating all manner of crazy stuff: https://youtu.be/WVVLyZKtIbI?si=sFDuCGXpdO-CbP8K https://youtu.be/WVVLyZKtIbI?si=sFDuCGXpdO-CbP8K
- mk67 3y agoSeems pretty hard without teleportation as your mouth is closed when doing this mostly.
- MaKey 3y ago> For instance, the awes I get when I crack open a beer bottle with my teeth. People might be in awe because they are thinking about what it does to your teeth.
- LoveMortuus 3y agoI read the title as grass and got excited...
- ftxbro 3y agoFor anyone who doesn't know, the student who made the 'I Can Eat Glass' project is Ethan Mollick. He's now a professor at Wharton and in my opinion he is the best public LLM whisperer!
- dr_dshiv 3y agoHe is the best
- mabbo 3y agoI asked chatgpt the following: Please translate the sentence "I can eat glass, it does not hurt me" into 50 different languages. Include a pronunciation guide for English speakers for each. And was not disappointed at all.
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- thenewwazoo 3y agoWhat synchronicity! My work slack status is currently this phrase, in Swahili, translated by a recent hire with whom I connected over love of language. The one time I have been able to bust out my knowledge of Swedish (limited to this one phrase) in order to try and flirt, the focus of my attentions was... not impressed. I couldn't tell if it was because I was not impressive, or just a cultural mismatch. In any case, it didn't discourage me from continuing to learn.
- asabla 3y agoIt could also be that ice cream is very close to glass in Swedish. Matter in fact ice cream in Swedish is actually spelled the same as glass. So depending on how well you pronounced it, you may just have said: I can eat ice cream, it doesn't hurt edit: added a missing word
- hnarn 3y agoFor those wondering, single consonant means slow vowel, double consonant means fast vowel, just like “floss”. So: glass (swe) -> gláss (ice cream) glas (swe) -> glaas (glass) To make it even easier these two words also have different A-sounds, the first quick one has the one in english “tan”, the second has the one in “car”.
- darraghenright 3y agoPlot twist, in Hiberno English that A-sound is the same in both words :) Ice cream in French is also "glace" which is of course spelled differently but sounds pretty much the same as glass.
- hnarn 3y agoSwedish has a long history of importing words from French (as do many other European languages for obvious historical reasons), so I’m quite sure this is indeed the origin of the word. What usually happened though was that after importing the word, it (sometimes) got a new spelling more compatible with Swedish phonetics. Other examples of this include Swedish “trottoar” (fr: “trottoir”)
- janalsncm 3y agoThe Mandarin translation is incorrect. The he chose close homophones of the right words, but they have the wrong tones. You can verify this by translating the image back to English.
- Tao3300 3y agoWhat are you translating with? Google seems to get the right result by translating "我能吞下玻璃而不伤身体" as "I can swallow glass without hurting myself" Of course, that doesn't mean Google is correct.
- janalsncm 3y agoOn the archived page he translates it to 我克藝吃玻璃，我不毀受傷。 https://web.archive.org/web/20040203215138/http://hcs.harvard.edu/~igp/asia.html https://web.archive.org/web/20040203215138/http://hcs.harvar... 我克藝 is the wrong translation of “I can”. 我可以 is correct. They sound similar though.
- wonger_ 3y agoOne of the external links is a page that uses translations of the phrase as a UTF-8 rendering test. It has 150 translations, including some weird ones like Old Norse: ᛖᚴ ᚷᛖᛏ ᛖᛏᛁ ᚧ ᚷᛚᛖᚱ ᛘᚾ ᚦᛖᛋᛋ ᚨᚧ ᚡᛖ ᚱᚧᚨ ᛋᚨᚱ and Inuktitut: ᐊᓕᒍᖅ ᓂᕆᔭᕌᖓᒃᑯ ᓱᕋᙱᑦᑐᓐᓇᖅᑐᖓ http://www.columbia.edu/~fdc/utf8.html#glass http://www.columbia.edu/~fdc/utf8.html#glass
- vic-traill 3y ago>Saying "I can eat glass, it does not hurt me", however, ensures that the speaker "will be viewed as an insane native, and treated with dignity and respect". Well, I'm not sure where Michel Lotito [0] (aka Monsieur Mangetout) fits w/ this ... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Michel_Lotito https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Michel_Lotito
- Akronymus 3y agohuh, seems as if there slipped an addition / in there. Which broke my redirection, but still worked. Which makes me curious as how that happened in the first place.
- emodendroket 3y agoI was just thinking about this the other day; how strange to see that others remember and were thinking the same.
- EGreg 3y agoWhen I was in Julliard pre-college music school, there was a girl I had a crush on. She was from South Africa and I wanted to impress her. But being 14 years old, I didn’t want to say something cheesy. So I asked my Dutch friends how to say this (it is the same in Afrikaans)… Beware of the giant chicken! It will eat your hair.
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- dr_dshiv 3y ago“Mi hermano está enfermo pero mis pantalones son rojos.” This was my favorite bombastic phrase in Spanish—for the same purpose: to be “viewed as an insane native, and treated with dignity and respect”
- loxias 3y agoAwesome. I remember this from the early internet. I think from everything2. An older code, but it checks out.
- buyx 3y agoIt's interesting that the page says that Afrikaans was derived from Dutch in the 20th century, but the two languages are so different. Dutch: Ik kan glas eten. Het doet geen pijn. Afrikaans: Ek kan glas eet, dit maak my nie seer nie The truth, of course, is that Afrikaans split off from Dutch centuries earlier, but it wasn't a "prestige language" until the 20th century. The page comes from a more innocent time, when the internet hadn't hit critical mass, and you could get away with stuff like that without pedants fact-checking you to death.
- reilly3000 3y agoOh it’s lovely though isn’t it? It’s like gravity, it seems inexorable. Being incorrect in front of enough eyes is a path towards correctness. Oft a painful one, but almost always informative.
- sverhagen 3y agoThere's not reliably one way to translate something, and there could be Dutch versions much closer to the one shown here in Afrikaans, such as: "dat doet mij niet zeer". Regardless, the Afrikaanse version is already very readable to my Dutch eyes. So much that its misleading about how close the languages really are, because as you say, they have well diverged, and while there's a lot of similarities, there's also plenty of space for native speakers of either language to miss the gist of what's being said in the other language.