Subject: Re: [lojban] Eating glass, events, and rape

From: "Mark E. Shoulson" <[email-masked]>
Date: 14 Sep 2000 02:51:53 -0000

>From: [email-masked]
>Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 22:17:18 EDT
>
>
>In a message dated 00-09-12 17:24:40 EDT, mark writes:
>
><< "I can eat glass; it doesn't hurt me" ... The Lojban
> answer has been there for quite a while, and reads:
> 
> mi ka'e citka loi blaci .i la'edi'u na xrani mi >>
>
>Careful. The perversity of English is such that, for some verbs, "can" means 
>"actually do," e.g., "I can see clearly now" and so for. In this case, I 
>suspect that this means "I have actually eaten glass on at least one occasion 
>and it (that particular act) did not hurt me." 
>The point about {l... nu} is probably well taken, though in this case {pino 
>lo...} works fine. 

I'm presuming that someone actually means this, and so {pu'i} might in fact
be correct, but then again {ka'e} is silent on the realization of the
potential... and so might the English be. I can live with {ka'e}, the
emphasis here may indeed be the ability to eat glass hurtlessly. It could
be, anyway. I understand the distinction you're making, though.

I didn't make up the original version, btw.

~mark