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Did You Know An entry from Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 17 September, 2006. There were over 150 edits made to the article while it was there.
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I've often wondered about this supposed sentence. How is this gramatically valid? Using "Buffalo" for the city, "bison" for the animal, and "bewilder" for the verb, how would one write it? "Buffalo bison Buffalo bison bison bewilder Buffalo bison"? It seems to stop making sense round about the fifth buffalo. In the "translation", what does the clause "whom other bison from the city in New York intimidate" correspond to? What in the original sentence is the syntactical equivalent of "whom"?- Nunh-huh 19:16, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

[The] Buffalo [bison] [that] Buffalo [bison] [bewilder] [themselves] [bewilder] [other] Buffalo [bison]. Probably. -- ALoan (Talk) 19:40, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Spot on ALoan. The explanation in the article needs some work. violet/riga (t) 20:19, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, good. At least I can continue to have English as my first language :) I was tempted to add this as an external link... -- ALoan (Talk) 20:43, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah I came across that one! violet/riga (t) 21:04, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is so confusing...but so Wikipedia at the same time! :-) --HappyCamper 00:40, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article just has to reappear next April 1! Did you know... ...that Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo? Melchoir 21:31, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This one's a gem :) -- Samir धर्म 06:24, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion

Why delete? What would be the reason?

And wouldn't it be nice to add some audio clips (e.g. in the other languages section) so emphasis, tonality and accent can become more clear? Emmaneul 13:20, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That is a great idea. We should get the Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia here. violet/riga (t) 14:06, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo?

Please forgive me my poor English, but I cannot parse the example from the ext. reference [1] in the way it was written there. I stumbled on the fourth level: How come "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo" means "American bison habitually bamboozled by members of their own species (that is, buffalo whom other buffalo regularly buffalo) characteristically engage in bamboozlement."? Namely, I fail to see how passive voice comes into play here. Please help. `'mikka (t) 23:01, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

[The] [buffalo=bison] [that other] [buffalo=bison] [buffalo=bamboozle] [engage in] [buffalo=bambooling]. HTH. -- ALoan (Talk) 23:09, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oops! that's exactly the example from our article truncated. The examples from this blog were the base of [the book]. Can someone verify whether the buffalo sentence is in there, so that it may be a solid reference to this article? And an improvement, too, since we can describe a sentence of arbitrary length. (Now unfortunately it is not allowed, since blogs are not valid sources ) `'mikka (t) 23:37, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Punctuation

68.42.67.85 added this:

With punctuation it would be: Buffalo buffalo, Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

I think that's wrong, right? I mean, the sentence boils down to:

"Bison other bison tease tease some other bison", which I'm pretty positive can't be "Bison, other bishon tease, tease some other bison."

In fact the statement "The omission of punctuation makes it difficult to read the flow of the sentence" seems to indicate that punctuation has been omitted, and it really hasn't, has it? Should that bit go? 02:19, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

That IS TOO correct, but it omits an implied "whom" such as this:

Bison, whom other bison tease, tease some other bison.

That is it, and so the punctuation is correct as written there, with the commas at between the second and third and between the fifth and sixth words.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.42.67.85 (talk) 02:28, September 17, 2006
But that's not correct without the whom. I think. Help I need a grammarian. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 02:55, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would APPROVE the move. Note also that Buffalo (as opposed to buffalo) refers to Buffalo, New York. Apfox 18:42, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Red-headed boys blonde girls tease tease brunette girls."
It's not very pretty, but it works without the "whom" (whom blonde girls tease). Then replace all hair colors to Buffalo and all boys and girls to buffalo, and change all instances of "tease" to buffalo, and you end up with the sentence "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." Quod erat demonstrandum. --Tony Sidaway 04:54, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's right. And, if you change the sentence to "Red-headed boys, blonde girls tease, tease brunette girls", it's no longer a sentence. "Red-headed boys, whom blonde girls tease, tease brunette girls" is a sentence, but it's a different one, actually, since it is talking now about all the red-headed boys (and it so happens that they are all teased by the blonde girls), rather than the subset of red-headed boys who are teased by the blonde girls. So this business of dropping in the commas is wrong. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 05:02, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Buffalo-city buffalo bully/buffalo bison (that) proper-noun-Buffalo (do) buffalo is as far as you can get legitimately. You cannot omit the descriptors and adjectives legally. I cannot see that this is a legal sentence at all. If one really needs this kind of Mensa-cruft, try "That that that that is is that that that that is," or Elvis Costello's "People pleasing people pleasing people like you" (which is legitimate and only omits potential hyphens), but not this. There are too many missing terms for this to be valid. To say, "With enough tinkering you can understand this" is not the same thing as saying "this is a syntactically valid sentence." As for "grammatically correct," that's out of the question, as the suggested parsings show us that there are several elements that need punctuating. Geogre 04:04, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The commas are incorrect, think about putting them in a sentence with exactly the same structure:
 Men, women love, love men.
They are clearly wrong here, just as they are in the buffalo sentence. Perhaps you want to suggest the prosody one would use while saying the sentence out load, but that is not the same as punctuation. —johndburger 14:25, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hare and and and and and Hounds.

A pub - the Hare and Hounds - has a new pub sign painted. But the painter accidentally leaves out the spaces between Hare and and and and and Hounds. In writing to complain about this error, the pub owner's typewriter develops a fault such that in his letter, there is a 'Q' between 'Hare' and 'and', and 'and' and 'and', and 'and' and 'and', and 'and' and 'and', and 'and' and 'and', and 'and' and 'Hounds'. By conjuring up increasingly unlikely events, you can construct a valid sentence with any number of consecutive 'and's in it. SteveBaker 03:04, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Dave1001 03:58, 17 September 2006 (UTC) is this spam?[reply]

Ending period?

I can understand what the sentence says, thanks to the second external link, but how is it correct without an ending period?

Cyclic Buffaloing

If Buffalo buffalo, Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo, then there is a cycle in the directed graph consisting of vertices that represent Buffalo buffalo where a directed edge goes from Buffalo buffalo A to Buffalo buffalo B if Buffalo buffalo A buffaloes Buffalo buffalo B, provided that there is at least one but not infinitely many Buffalo buffalo, Buffalo buffalo buffalo. Synesthetic 06:16, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

best article title ever

That's all I have to say about that.--Mike Selinker 06:53, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. Either this or exploding sheep. -- the GREAT Gavini 08:11, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There's also exploding whale. Shawnc 10:41, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely agree, best article EVAR. --Suleyman Habeeb 08:42, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. --Broux 18:55, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

origin

sentences like this have been around for far longer than 1992, as claimed in the article. when i attended Hampshire College Summer Studies in Math/Cognitive Science in 1984 and 1985, sentences like "buffalo buffalo buffalo" (and longer variants) were commonly used to test parsers that students wrote (usually in Lisp). other variants were "fish fish fish", "char char char" ("char" is a type of fish) and "French french French".

Benwing 07:48, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Had had example

That solved an argument for me - my wife, where I had had "had had 'had', had had 'had had'. 'Had had' had had", had had "had had 'had had', had had 'had'. 'Had' had had". "had had 'had', had had 'had had'. 'Had had' had had" had had the approval of Wikipedia.

Still can't understand it

This is what I've got so far, and it makes little or no sence to me:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Bison confuse Buffalo bison confuse bison Buffalo bison.

Buffalo confuse Buffalo bison who confuse bison, Buffalo bison.

I think it's a who, I thought whom's only come after prepositions.

The second "bufflo" isn't confuse, it's bison. The sentance becomes "Buffalo bison Buffalo bison confuse confuse Bufflo bison". With other words, it becomes "Buffalo bison (that other) Bufflo Bison confuse, (themselves) confuse Buffalo Bison". The bison are confused by bison and confuse other bison. If that doesn't help, look at the example given earlier on this page, maybe that will (with boys and girls instead of buffalo). Salur 10:32, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Let's replace 'Buffalo' (the city) with 'Boston' and 'buffalo' (the verb) with 'confuse'. 

 Boston buffalo Boston buffalo confuse confuse Boston buffalo.

...now add in some omitted words: 

 The Boston buffalo that other Boston buffalo confuse also confuse other Boston buffalo.

Since all the buffalo come from Boston, let's leave that unsaid: 

 The buffalo that other buffalo confuse also confuse other buffalo.

...or to say it more clearly: 

 In a herd of buffalo in the city of Buffalo, there are three groups of
 aniumals: A, B and C such that

 A confuses B
 B confuses C

 Group B, that group A confuse, confuse group C in turn.

...now put it back together by replacing 'A', 'B' and 'C with 'Boston buffalo': 

 Boston buffalo, that Boston buffalo confuse, confuse Boston buffalo in turn.

...then change confuse to 'buffalo': 

 Boston buffalo Boston buffalo confuse confuse Boston buffalo.

...then drop out words and punctuation that are optional in English: 

 Boston buffalo Boston buffalo buffalo buffalo Boston buffalo.

...then put the action back in Buffalo: 

 Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

as many as ninety-two possible interpretations. ??

About "other languages" section ... I found this discription besides "niwa niwa niwa niwatori ga iru". I am a native Japanese speaker, but have never heard such possible interpretations. It should be read in one sole way, "niwa (garden) niwa (at ...) niwa (two + counting suffix for birds) niwatori (chickin) ga (presenting the topic = here, "niwatori") iru (be, lay)". I would like to know what was the source.

Not exactly same to "BbBbbbBb", due to similarity in a phrase comes from writing, not from its pronunciation, here is another Japanese phrase "子子子子子子子子子子子子"; though it is not the way to write this phrase, it can be read "neko no ko no koneko; shishi no ko no kojishi" (pussycat, as a child of a cat; kojishi (lionkid) as a child of a lion). It appeared as an episode of Ono no Takamura in Kodansho. Somehow pedantic, but well known, even not so much as "niwa niwa". --Aphaia 10:57, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does Boris merit a mention?

Is it worth noting that Boris Johnson said "Badgers badgers badger badger badgers" and "Dogs dogs dog dog dogs" on HIGNFY? He explained the structure with the sentence "Men women love love women". --Adam (Talk) 12:46, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done. `'mikka (t) 17:24, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hebrew

Would someonelike to write the hebrew example in the hebrew alphabet and list the roots.RuthieK 13:57, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done. ColinFine 17:36, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Punctuation

The article currently suggests that the "correct" punctuation is thus:

Buffalo buffalo, Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Both of these commas are incorrect, just as they would be in this sentence with parallel structure:

Men, women love, love men.

Perhaps the intent is to suggest the prosody or phrasing that one would use while saying the sentence aloud, but it is simply incorrect to suggest that those commas belong there. —johndburger 14:16, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind, I just noticed there's already such a section above. —johndburger 14:20, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

plural form

Isn't plural form of "buffalo" (animal) buffalos?

cause this sound ungrammatic to me:

[Some] buffalo[s] [from] Buffalo, [who are intimidated by other buffalo[s] from Buffalo],
[also themselves] intimidate [other different] buffalo[s] from Buffalo. --Shandristhe azylean 14:17, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that buffalo pluralizes the same way that antelope, cattle and moose do. Jsbillings 14:44, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
According to Wiktionary, buffalo is one possible way of pluralize w:buffalo (together with buffaloes and buffalos) (Liberatore, 2006). 17:18, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Malay

I'm thinking of asking User:Xiorlanth directly since he/she added it but can someone help me make sense of this:

In Malay lovers can say "Sayang, sayang, sayang sayang sayang. Sayang sayang sayang?", which translates to "Darling, I love you. Do you love me?". This is a true homophone as the same word is used for pronoun and verb. The person being asked can even reply "Sayang," or "Sayang sayang sayang," in return.

It's been a while since I've used my Malay much but I can't think why there is two sayangs (sayang, sayang,) in the first sentence. Unless it's supposed to be saying "Darling, darling, I love you" in which case we should make this clear... Or am I missing something? Nil Einne 14:33, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

grammatical mistakes

I was looking at this article, and noticed a (basic) grammatical mistake in the 'Fuck' example (because it was the only one I could actually understand.) The sentence read; "Fuck! Fucking fuckers fucking fucked!"

until (just as I was about to) someone fixed it to; "Fuck! Fucking fucker's fucking fucked!"

Considering this, is there a possibility that most of the examples in the article are flawed? I, personally think that most of them seem to be incorrect (e.g. I would have capitalised Buffalo at different places in the sentence.)

I think "Fucking fuckers fucking fucked" is in simple past tense with a plural subject, while "Fucking fucker's fucking fucked" has a singular subject in either present perfect simple or simple present tense, right? Shawnc 16:35, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The 'Fuck' example seems to miss the point. Using derivational morphology to turn 'fuck' into 'fucking' and 'fucker' is cheating---the point of the original example ('Dogs dog dogs') is that 'dog', without any additional morphology, is both a noun and a verb and can be used both ways in a single sentence. Of course, the point of switching to 'buffalo' is that 'buffalo' doesn't even require any additional inflectional morphology to make a grammatical example. Luckily, 'fuck' is both a noun and a verb, even without any additional morphology, so if you want, you could have this example:

Fucks fuck fucks

146.50.22.127 14:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

homophones

I believe the more precise term for the different usage of the word is "homonym" not "homophone".


Well maybe...
  • Homonyms are words that either sound the same or are spelled the same but which have different meanings.
  • Homographs are words that are spelled the same but which have different meanings. eg Bow (of a ship - pronounced like 'bough') and Bow (and arrow - pronounced like 'beau'). All Homographs are by definition also Homonyms.
  • Homophones are words that sound the same but which have different meanings. eg To, Too and Two. All Homophones are also Homonyms.
But Buffalo, buffalo and buffalo are spelled alike and sound alike - so they are Homophones and Homographs and Homonyms. To call them homophones is to miss that they are also spelled alike and to call them homographs would miss the fact that they are pronounced the same way. Calling them homonyms is a little vague since you don't know whether the words are spelled alike or sound alike or both. Whichever word you choose misses a little of the information - but in this case, all three are correct. I suppose you could argue that the city of Buffalo is always capitalised so it's not a homograph of buffalo (the animal) or buffalo (the verb) - so I guess you could just about maybe kinda uber-pedant your way into arguing that homograph is out of the running - and I suppose that would make homophone fractionally more precise than homonym but that's one hell of a stretch. SteveBaker 16:40, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Buffalo...mmmm buffalo...


NO to Original Research

I confess being guilty in opening the can of worms by introducing the "similar examples" section. The things went out of control, looks like. Therefore I suggest to invoke the basic wikipedia rules: "no original research" and "cite your sources". I will not suggest to apply it retrocatively now, but all new unreferenced additions of examples should be mercilessly culled. `'mikka (t) 16:51, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I regularly roam Wikipedia inserting {{references}} at the drop of a hat. But somehow this feels different to me. If a sentence does indeed exhibit the same phenomenon (many of those cited do not, but some do), I don't see that it matters whether it is referenced from somewhere else, any more than you need to reference every example sentence in any other linguistics article.
I would like to see the eimilar examples section drastically pruned, however. ColinFine 17:42, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Colin; it seems like the "no original research" rule shouldn't apply here, as supplying examples isn't research per se. But I have a further question, and would like some feedback from the community. I posted a sentence, "That that that that had been had been that that that had been had been unexpected," which has since been deleted (EDIT: it's back up). What's more questionable, however, is that I included a discussion of the sentence, which crosses into the realm of original research. Mitigating this, however, is (1) that the discussion itself served as further exemplification of use-mention distinction and recursive referencing in English, and (2) that, as a professor, I am the type of "expert" who actually does get quoted on these matters, but simply citing myself doesn't seem appropriate. I'm not sure what the policy should be here. For reference, here is my prior addition:
"That that that that had been had been that that that had been had been unexpected." If you'd understood that sentence, then you'd have seen that "that that that that had been had been that that that had been had been unexpected" had been that that "that that that that had been had been that that that had been had been unexpected" had been referring to. This result being on its own relatively unforseeable, we might even say that that "that that that that had been had been that that that had been had been unexpected" had been that that "that that that that had been had been that that that had been had been unexpected" had been referring to had been unexpected. That "that that "that that that that had been had been that that that had been had been unexpected" had been that that "that that that that had been had been that that that had been had been unexpected" had been referring to had been unexpected" had been a valid sentence can be seen by rephrasing it as "the fact that the sentence "the fact that that was what it was was unexpected" was a sentence which refers to itself would not be likely to have been foreseen"
Thanks, all. D.E. Wittkower 19:00, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, 'no original research' is pointless here. It is not about facts. Everyone knows English well enough to be a judge. Everyone can see if an example matches pattern. But they must match the pattern! not simply be an amusing observation of something vaguely similiar involving repetition RuthieK 19:10, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article r0x0rz my s0x0rz!!1!

Good job explaining the meaning, it was certainly difficult (and intended thus), but rewarding. It also for some reason reminded me of:

w3rd. --216.9.250.6 17:21, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is the verb recognised in the UK?

I have never seen 'buffalo' used as a verb. Is this a US English word rather than an English verb? Rob cowie 17:42, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've heard of the term before, but perhaps only from US sources. It's certainly not in common usage. violet/riga (t) 17:58, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wiktionary suggests "US, slang" for this verb. Shawnc 18:10, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Because because because

The following example was deleted as original research

  • The only sentence in English that has 'because' three times in successive order: Some people say that one cannot begin a sentence with because because because is a conjunction. However, the preceding claim is incorrect: There is no "only" sentence having three consecutive occurrences of the word "because", because "because" can be used three times in a row in any number of valid sentences. Furthermore, because "because because because" is valid, this sentence goes on to show that "because because because because" is valid. And because "because because because because" is valid, *this* sentence shows that "because because because because because" is valid. And so forth.

Howevere I decided it is worth saving for history, because it reveals the power of quotation to create sentences of this type, — which is already present in the classical "had had had" example. `'mikka (t) 17:48, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the problems with it, other than original research, are false premise ("the only sentence...") and internal contradiction ("the preciding claim is incorrect"). Shawnc 18:03, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

Different title

Given the amount of new homophonic sentences, surely it would nice to amend the title to suit this? Who on earth is ever going to type 'Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo' into the search engine?

--Jayau1234 16:26, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that we might need to refocus the article, perhaps using this as the primary example. I was thinking of "Homophonic sentence" but that would seem to be a neology in such a context. Perhaps "Homophonic repetition" might work. We could just create that as a seperate article instead and move the other examples there. violet/riga (t) 16:35, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What - give up the best article title in the whole of Wikipedia?! No way! SteveBaker 16:42, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(Besides - is it about Homophonic, Homographic or all Homonymic constructions?)
Well, it will thill be the best redirect. :-) Although I would vote for the title *Mr. Munchausen: Being a True Account of Some of the Recent Adventures Beyond the Styx of the Late Hieronymus Carl Friedrich, Sometime Baron Munchausen of Bodenwerder , also shortened mercilessly, so prepare to be assimilated... `'mikka (t) 16:59, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Observation: the phrase is actually quite popular, with almost 100,000 hits. Shawnc 16:48, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No it is not. Only 122 unique google hits: [2]. And I swear that when I first saw this article and tried to research google to verify an add something, there were only a handful of hits. So I guess it is all wikipedia's fault. WIKIPEDIA RULES! `'mikka (t) 17:07, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above search includes comas, but the original phrase does not. You can see Rapaport's original publication here. Shawnc 17:38, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Commas are ignored by google. At the same I find it to be an amusing feature of google that the shorter phrase, "buffalo buffalo buffalo" gives 5x less hits! `'mikka (t) 18:12, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've just discovered an amazing phenomenon of google. If it is not reperted elsewhere yet, hereby I pronounce it to be "the Buggalo Effect" (or, better, "Mikkalai's Buffalo Effect";... OK, OK,... "Mikkalai's Buffalo Google Effect"). I enter the word "buffalo" in the quoted search string several times and record the number of hits:
  • Buffalo x1 : 237,000,000
  • Buffalo x2 : 966,000
  • Buffalo x3 : 18,200
  • Buffalo x4 : 9,400
  • Buffalo x5 : 906
  • Buffalo x6 : 101,000
  • Buffalo x7 : 126,000
  • Buffalo x8 : 94,000
  • Buffalo x9 : 126,000
  • Buffalo x10: 94,600
  • Buffalo x11: 125,600
  • Buffalo x12: 94,600
  • Buffalo x13: 132,000
  • Buffalo x14: 96,000
  • Buffalo x15: 125,000
  • Buffalo x16: 95,600
  • Buffalo x15: 126,000
  • Buffalo x17: 94,300

I am working on its explanation. When I'm done and publish it, I hope I will get myself an article in wikipedia at last! `'mikka (t) 18:23, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rapaport's original phrase

Rapaport's original phrase is different from the one in this article. His had 10 words: "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." The one in this article has 8, "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

The 10-word version introduces a new verb "Buffalo buffalo", which Rapaport likens to "Tennessee waltzing". For clarity, the following two sentences have similar syntax: 

Buffalo buffalo  Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Mice             cats            chase           eat             cheese.

Shall we rename this article to Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.?

Pro: longer title is true to the original phrase.
Con: esoteric use of the verb "Buffalo buffalo". Shawnc 18:22, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's really surprising to know that it may be a grammatically right sentence.
Remark: in the long version, the proper noun "Buffalo" is used as an adverb that modifies the verb buffalo. Can this be considered grammatically correct? Shawnc 19:11, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Really long vs. unboundedly long

My understanding had always been that this example was interesting not just because it was a really long sentence using only one word-form, but because arbitrarily long sentences of this type were all grammatical, i.e., every sentence buffalon, n >= 1, is grammatical and interpetable. Thus some of the supposedly similar examples like "two to two to two two" or "malo malo malo malo" are not quite the same, because they can't be extended unboundedly. David Chiang 00:06, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your understanding is correct, according to Sweet Reason: A Field Guide to Modern Logic by Tim Tymoczko and Jim Henle. It's a great book, and I highly recommend it. I like the way you wrote this, and you should add it to the article. Feel free to steal my sourcing. --JaimeLesMaths 01:31, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please allow me to disagree. The author of "buffalo" himself explains that the example was designed in the context of the observation that if one rearranges words in a sentence, then one produces a very small number of grammatical sentences, "with a few weird exceptions". The "buffalo" was an example of such exception: a sentence however you rearrange the words in it still stays grammatical. I didn't add this into article because this explanation was in a non-reputable source: mailing list or something, which are not allowed in wikipedia. `'mikka (t) 01:53, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sentence Construction

One of the stated reason why the Buffalo sentence is difficult to understand, "The length of the sentence reaches the limitations of human ability to parse structure and meaning" seems to undermine itself. In fact, sentences can be considerably longer and still quite intelligible.

Smurfs smurfing smurffy smurfally smurf smurf Smurfette!

Parse tree

I put up an image of a (simplified) parse tree, and added it to the article. I'd like to have the explanation make use of the image, but haven't the time right now. Other editors should feel free to fiddle with the sizing, caption, etc., or let me know about ways to improve the parse tree. By the way, as indicated in the caption, I think referring to relative clause, or even English relative clauses could improve the explanation. —johndburger 02:47, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Even More Buffalo

Here's a trick... every time you see the animal buffalo you can start a "Buffalo buffalo buffalo" phrase like so:

Buffalo buffalo, Buffalo buffalo, Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo, Buffalo buffalo buffalo. Etc. Synesthetic 03:50, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

1972 origin or earlier

I've been informed by Professor Rapaport via email that he started using the sentence in 1972, while others have been using it even earlier. Hopefully a citation will be made available shortly. Shawnc 12:31, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nice work. violet/riga (t) 12:40, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Removed "Similar examples"

I think we should weed out the "similar examples" section because it's starting to look like "hey, I discovered these two homophones in my language!" or "I just constructed this sentence that uses the same word 15 times!". But, I am copying the rejected examples here for the convenience of edit-warriors. CapnPrep 15:22, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Fuck, famously has multiple uses as well: "Fuck! I hope those fucking fuckers get fucked for the fuck that they fucking fucked." or even more succinctly "Fuck! Fucking fucker's fucking fucked!" which means "Darn, it's broken." There have also been attempts to use Fuck as every possible part of speech in one sentence: "Fuck, fucking Fucker fucked the fuckers fuckingly!"
  • In Urdu one can say "Samajh samajh k samajh ko samjho, samajh samajh k samajh ko samajhna bhi aik samajh hay. Jo samajh samajh k samajh ko na samjhay wo meri samajh may na samajh hay" meaning: "Understand the art of understanding by good understanding, because understanding the art of understanding by good understanding is a good understanding. The one who can't understand the art of understanding by good understanding is in my understanding not able to understand."
  • Also in Spanish - Bebe, bebé. Bebe. Drink, baby. Drink. (With appropriate accents)
  • in Polish "szczęk szczęk" means "{sound of) clattering jaws", "trzask trzask" means "crack of (burning) timber chips"
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