I Can Eat Glass – Wikipedia

Linguistic undertaking

I Can Eat Glass was a linguistic undertaking documented on the early Web by then-Harvard scholar Ethan Mollick.^[1] The target was to offer audio system with translations of the phrase “I can eat glass, it doesn’t damage me” from all kinds of languages; the phrase was chosen due to its unorthodox nature. Mollick’s authentic web page disappeared in or about June 2004.^[2]

As Mollick defined, guests to a international nation have “an irresistible urge” to say one thing in that language, and no matter they are saying (a cited instance being alongside the strains of “The place is the lavatory?”) normally marks them as vacationers instantly. Saying “I can eat glass, it doesn’t damage me”, nonetheless, ensures that the speaker “shall be seen as an insane native, and handled with dignity and respect”.

The undertaking grew to appreciable dimension since net surfers had been invited to submit translations.^[3] The phrase was translated into over 150 languages, together with some which can be fictional or invented, in addition to into code from numerous pc languages. It turned an Internet meme.^[4]

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