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Possibly the weirdest sentence in the English language is: “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo”.

It takes a bit to understand this, so let’s build up from simple stuff. First, suppose that dogs chase cats, who then chase mice. Another way of saying this is:

“Cats that dogs chase, chase mice”

But the comma and the word “that” aren’t technically needed, so we can say:

“Cats dogs chase chase mice”.

But cats also chase other cats, so we could say:

“Cats dogs chase chase cats”.

And they can be chased by other cats too:

“Cats cats chase chase cats”.

Step back and look at this sentence for a moment. This is the basic structure of the buffalo sentence. Let’s think about buffalo chasing other buffalo:

“Buffalo buffalo chase chase buffalo”.

Now there’s a lesser-known English verb “to buffalo” meaning “to push around”. So instead of chasing, let’s make these buffalo push each other around:

“Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo”.

Remember that this means:

“Buffalo that buffalo push around, push buffalo around”.

For the final step, let’s just talk about a particular kind of buffalo - the kind that live in the zoo in Buffalo, New York. These, of course, are Buffalo buffalo - just as the lions are Buffalo lions.

“Buffalo buffalo that Buffalo Buffalo push around, push Buffalo buffalo around”

or more properly:

“Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo”.

For extra credit, here’s a sentence with “and” five times together:

“When you drew that Fish-And-Chips sign, you should have put a hyphen between Fish and And and And and Chips”.

Posted by Pete Bevin at July 22, 2006 10:27 AM
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