Tuesday, May 14, 2013

English grammar fun with "buffalo"

I stumbled upon this on Reddit, and as a pure grammatical ice-breaker (to an advanced crowd), it could definitely stir up some fun discussion.

From Wikipedia:

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatically valid sentence in American English, used as an example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated linguistic constructs. [...]

The sentence is unpunctuated and uses three different readings of the word "buffalo". In order of their first use, these are
Marking each "buffalo" with its use as shown above gives:
Buffaloa buffalon Buffaloa buffalon buffalov buffalov Buffaloa buffalon."





3 comments:

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  2. If the labelling of "Buffalo(a) buffalo(n) Buffalo(a) buffalo(n) buffalo(v) buffalo(v) Buffalo(a) buffalo(n)."
    is correct, then the sentence does not make any sense. Changing the adjectives and verbs to more recognizable ones it would read:
    <> which is obviously nonsense

    Mike

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  3. Hi Mike,
    You can take a look here, where the sentence is parsed in multiple readings. It explains a bit more clearly how it's grammatically possible:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo#Sentence_construction

    Basically, restated, it means: Buffalo from Buffalo, that buffalo from Buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

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