Monday, August 20, 2007

This is what linguistics is all about (kind of)

Being waist deep in linguistics for much of the past 2 years, I was quite shocked that I've never heard of this totally grammatical sentence before:

Buffallo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

What that means is:

The buffalo from Buffalo (NY) which are bullied (buffaloed) by buffalo from Buffalo (NY) tend to do some bullying (buffaloing) themselves. They, of course, direct their buffaloing toward other buffalo from Buffalo NY.

Or

Buffalo buffalo, that other Buffalo buffalo buffalo, themselves buffalo other Buffalo buffalo

Thus

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

A similar sentence which I really like is:

That that that that child said is wrong is obvious to everyone.

Or

It's obvious to everyone that [[the thing] which the child over there said] is wrong.

Or

That [[the thing] which that child said is wrong] is obvious to everyone.

That the thing that that child said is wrong is obvious to everyone.

That that that that child said is wrong is obvious to everyone.

1 comment:

Jim said...

you confuse me sir.