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Wednesday, April 06, 2011

So THAT'S new!

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." is a grammatically valid sentence in the English language, 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
  • a. the city of Buffalo, New York, which is used as a noun adjunct in the sentence and is followed by the animal;
  • n. the noun buffalo, an animal, in the plural (equivalent to "buffaloes" or "buffalos"), in order to avoid articles;
  • v. the verb "buffalo" meaning to bully, confuse, deceive, or intimidate.
Marking each "buffalo" with its use as shown above gives:
Buffaloa buffalon Buffaloa buffalon buffalov buffalov Buffaloa buffalon.
Thus, the sentence when parsed reads as a claim that bison who are intimidated or bullied by bison are themselves intimidating or bullying to bison

1 comment:

Unknown said...

hahahahahaha ;D