Is "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." a sentence? Can you diagram it?
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M$6 Answers
Buffalo, in addition to the animal and the city, also means “to bully, confuse, deceive, or intimidate.” As such, it can be parsed a few different ways:
- Bison from Buffalo intimidate (other) bison from Buffalo that are intimidated by bison from Buffalo
further understand the structure of the sentence, one can replace
"Buffalo buffalo" with any number of noun phrases. Rather than
referring to "Buffalo buffalo" intimidating other "Buffalo buffalo",
one can use noun phrases like "Alley cats", "Junkyard dogs", and "Sewer
rats". The sentence then reads, "Alley cats Junkyard dogs intimidate happen to intimidate Sewer rats."]
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M$
“Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.”
First devised by professor William J. Rapaport in 1972, the sentence uses various meanings and parts of speech for the term “buffalo” (and its related proper noun “Buffalo”) to make an extremely hard-to-parse sentence.
Although most people know “buffalo” as both a singular and plural term for bison, and “Buffalo” as a city in New York, “buffalo” is also a verb meaning “to bully, confuse, deceive, or intimidate.” Using these definitions, Wikipedia suggests the sentence can be read:
Those (Buffalo buffalo) whom (Buffalo buffalo buffalo) buffalo (Buffalo buffalo).
Still too hard to follow for those of us who don’t know “buffalo” as a verb. Refine once more:
Those buffalo(es) from Buffalo are intimidated by buffalo(es) from Buffalo intimidate buffalo(es) from Buffalo.
And once more:
Bison from Buffalo, New York who are intimidated by other bison in their community also happen to intimidate other bison in their community.
The sentence is unpunctuated and uses three different readings of the word "buffalo". In order of their first use, these are
* c. the city of Buffalo, New York (or any other place named "Buffalo"), which is used as an adjective in the sentence and is followed by the animal;
* a. the animal buffalo, in the plural (equivalent to "buffaloes" or "buffalos"), in order to avoid articles (a noun);
* v. the verb "buffalo" meaning to bully, confuse, deceive, or intimidate.
Wikipedia has further explanation, including the slightly frightening note:
Buffalo is not the only word in English for which this kind of sentence can be constructed; any word which is both a plural noun and a plural form of a transitive verb will do. Other examples include dice, fish, right and smelt.
Beware of Buffalo buffalo, buffalo, for they may buffalo you!
http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/BuffaloBuffalo/buffalobuffalo.html
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M$
Malo: I would rather be
Malo: In an apple tree
Malo: Than a naughty boy
Malo: In adversity
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M$
My unorthodox mind.
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M$Various sources around the web
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M$A sentence can be defined as: "a string of words satisfying the grammatical rules of a language."
The rules of grammar are rules designed to help people understand each other. It is also defined as "acceptable patterns of a language."
That string of words does not do either of these things. In order to do that, it would need a few prepositions and pronouns. For example: "Those Buffalo buffalo whom Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo other Buffalo buffalo.
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M$
@mike Not quite. I mean to say that a sentence cannot be grammatically correct if it is not easily understood. That is the purpose of grammar--understanding. As it does not satisfy the rules of grammar, it is not a sentence.
On another note, I have no idea why 3 people chose my answer not helpful.
I've been down this road before.
It ends like this:
Buffalo sentence is grammatically correct. However, it's a loophole in the rules. A complete and properly formed sentence always conveys something. Without modifiers or punctuation, Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo is a string of words, not a sentence.
do you mean to say that if it meets the requirement of being easily understandable then it is grammatically correct? The word "acceptable" carries a lot of weight, who is doing the accepting?
