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Believe it or not, this sentence is grammatically correct and has meaning: “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 [that 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.
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.
Comments (52)
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There is a similar use of words in Chinese with the sentence:
ma ma ma ma,
or:
mother swears at the horse?
It makes use of the different Chinese tones. But not nearly as long as the buffalo sentence.
posted by Stewie on 3-11-2008 at 5:02 pm
Hmm…that sentence structure graphic looks a bit like a buffalo too. Looks like it’s facing left.
posted by Jerad on 3-11-2008 at 5:03 pm
my head asplode.
posted by Johnny Cat on 3-11-2008 at 5:12 pm
My sister’s father-in-law is nicknamed Buffalo. That could really mess things up if you used “buffalo” as a person’s name in that sentence…
posted by Melodye on 3-11-2008 at 5:42 pm
Johnny Cat made me choke on my Cap’n Crunch
posted by adrienne on 3-11-2008 at 5:43 pm
I put that sentence up as a favorite quote of mine on facebook about a month ago–as an editor with an English degree, it makes my heart happy :)
posted by Katie on 3-11-2008 at 5:48 pm
That sound you just heard was my brain collapsing on itself….
WHAAAAA????????
posted by donner on 3-11-2008 at 6:41 pm
Has is ever happened to you that you read a word so many times it stopped making sense?
That’s exactly what happened here.
posted by Ash on 3-11-2008 at 8:30 pm
Arrrrgggghhh! Brain cramp!
posted by haselwoman on 3-11-2008 at 10:05 pm
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
I think I see the first signs of a writer gone mad with this blog entry. Heh. ;-)
posted by c.a. Marks on 3-12-2008 at 5:18 am
How many cans can a can canner can if a can canner can can cans? A can canner can can as many cans as a can canner can if and only if a can canner can can cans.
posted by KJ on 3-12-2008 at 8:05 am
Ash: I agree completely.
Not only has buffalo become devoid of all meaning, but even though I know better, each time I look at it, I think it is spelled incorrectly.
posted by Mean Joe on 3-12-2008 at 10:39 am
This sentence is a favorite in computational linguistics lectures on parsing and machine translation, because it illustrates the weakness of automatic parsing tools relying on the form of the words in a sentence to determine how to break it up and categorize/translate it appropriately.
posted by Erin on 3-12-2008 at 11:20 am
i love the fact that “2007 Diet of The Year” is one of the adverts under the article. Eating 8 buffaloes can’t be a good diet….
posted by Lenary on 3-12-2008 at 2:54 pm
That diagram is sooo 1960s. Replace the S node at the top with a valid left-periphery (i.e., [CP [IP ... ]] at least). I don’t think that “Buffalo” as an adjective would go in the specifier position of an NP (it’s probably an adjunct). And a V can’t be the head of an RC–that should be a CP with a phonologically null head. Then you’ll be on your way to a 1980s Government and Binding tree.
posted by Noam Chomsky on 3-12-2008 at 3:01 pm
Woah, awesome…but really weird…
It may just be me, but that seems to be missing a lot of words…
“buffalo” = Those ???
posted by Shiz on 3-12-2008 at 3:02 pm
Here’s one I remember from Spanish Class:
“Como como? Como como como!”
(How do I eat? I eat like I eat!)
posted by Ira on 3-12-2008 at 3:06 pm
I don’t understand how the “whom” can be taken out of the first example, can that be explained with an example of a similar sentence that uses no homonyms
posted by lilwayne on 3-12-2008 at 3:13 pm
Grammatically correct? Perhaps, but this is a linguistic mess. If any of my students wrote this as an answer on their quiz, they would get an F.
posted by PENIX on 3-12-2008 at 3:22 pm
Developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers…
posted by rockasoo on 3-12-2008 at 4:00 pm
Steve Ballmer was right! Fantastic
posted by dudus on 3-12-2008 at 4:40 pm
Definitions of bison on the Web:
* Scientific name for buffalo. The modern American buffalo is Bison bison.
–
Oh you square me!
posted by rory on 3-12-2008 at 4:44 pm
reminds me of the Tagalog (Philippines) way of saying,
“Is it going down?” = “Bababa ba?”
posted by marhgil on 3-12-2008 at 10:19 pm
Dutch example: “Als achter vliegen vliegen vliegen vliegen vliegen vliegen achterna”.
Dutch has some more cute word weirdness:
Koeieuier (Cows udder) has 7 vowels in a row.
Angstschreeuw (fear scream) has 8 consonants in a row.
Jazzzinger (Jazz singer) has 3 z’s in a row.
posted by Dam Backer on 3-12-2008 at 10:59 pm
“Developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers…”
:o)
posted by gnosis on 3-12-2008 at 11:49 pm
A good friend showed me this one:
Joe, where Bob had had “had,” had had “had had;” “had had” had had a better effect on the teacher.
11 “had”s in one sentence
posted by Josh on 3-13-2008 at 1:18 am
Psh, do your homework better next time – you can get it up to a much more impressive eleven “buffalo”s quite easily:
Those buffalo from Buffalo which buffalo buffalo from Buffalo buffalo those buffalo from Buffalo which buffalo buffalo from Buffalo.
Or, in other words:
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo.
posted by Jeff on 3-13-2008 at 1:53 am
Oh, and for those people who are having trouble with the grammar of the sentence – would you have a problem with something like the following (just to pick a place name, a noun, and a verb at random)?:
Chicago lawyers Chicago lawyers eat eat Chicago lawyers Chicago lawyers eat.
A few words are implied; it parses like this:
(Those) Chicago lawyers (that) Chicago lawyers eat eat (those) Chicago lawyers (that) Chicago lawyers eat.
There’s a subset of lawyers from Chicago the members of which are eaten by lawyers from Chicago – that’s the first part of the sentence. The operative verb is the second “eat”: the people picked out by the first part (i.e. Chicago lawyers who get eaten by Chicago lawyers) eat Chicago lawyers who get eaten by Chicago lawyers – which is to say, there’s a group of lawyers from Chicago who engage in a very selective form of cannibalism, eating only each other.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo works the same way: (Those) upstate New York bison (that) upstate New York bison intimidate (in turn) intimidate (those) upstate New York bison (that) upstate New York bison intimidate.
posted by Jeff on 3-13-2008 at 2:02 am
The mouse that the cat that the dog that the man frightened chased bit ran away.
posted by Reg Reid on 3-13-2008 at 7:01 am
“Koeieuier (Cows udder) has 7 vowels in a row.”
That has 7 vowels in a row plus 2 consonants.
There’s even a better one in Finnish, 7 vowels in a row plus only 1 consonant:
hääyöaie
Means “an intention for a wedding night”. And yes, ‘y’ is a vowel in Finnish.
posted by hammaskivilammas on 3-13-2008 at 8:01 am
The sign painter outside the coach and horses public house asked the landlord to come and inspect his work, the landlord said, “I like it, but I think there is too much space between coach and and and and and horses.”
Jerry
posted by Jerry Kew on 3-13-2008 at 10:20 am
is this like the fish and chip shop sign fitters sentance: “the sign should read: Fish and and and and and chips”
posted by PHATboy on 3-13-2008 at 1:30 pm
quote: Dutch example: “Als achter vliegen vliegen vliegen vliegen vliegen vliegen achterna”.
I should have learned dutch as a foreighn laguage instead of latin. we have exactly the same:
“Wenn hinter Fliegen Fliegen fliegen, fliegen Fliegen Fliegen nach”
(If flys fly behind flys then flys are flieing after flys)
The same with “Robben” (seals)
posted by Moe on 3-13-2008 at 2:18 pm
To improve on KJ’s proposal:
How many can-cans can a can canner can, if a can canner can can can-cans?
posted by Koko on 3-13-2008 at 2:20 pm
I’m from Buffalo, ate buffalo, saw a buffalo, ate a water buffalo, smelled a buffalo, saw a herd of buffalo out west, still have family living in Buffalo, and so visit Buffalo several times a year, and have even been buffaloed in Buffalo, and buffaloed a few times out of Buffalo, but I still love Buffalo and the Buffalo Bills, and am proud of being a Buffaloian and being able to use Buffalo 14 times in a sentence. Could one of you put that all together for me, I’ve got a headache.
posted by Edwierdo on 3-13-2008 at 4:53 pm
Don’t forget the internet classic:
Badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger. Mushroom Mushroom
This one is simpler in context, but perhaps less grammatically solid.
Badgers harass badgers who harass badgers who harass other badgers who harass still more badgers ad infinitum. [followed by] Mushrooms grow rapidly.
posted by Andrew on 3-14-2008 at 6:01 am
I don’t find sentences like this a compelling case against automatic parsing, because people can’t parse them, either.
posted by Ben on 3-17-2008 at 8:08 pm
My favorite is
The policeman the boy the dog bit called came.
posted by Herb on 4-16-2008 at 11:52 am
Yes, they can be parsed by humans. It may be physically to parse some on paper, but it can be done. A junior high student of mine once took a roll of newsprint and diagrammed (R-K) the
last verse of “This is the house that Jack built”–the one beginning, “This is the cock that crowed in the morn.”
He did not do it for extra credit but to show his friends that he could diagram a long sentence. When he asked
what diagramming could get him extra credit, I showed him the three-page sentence in Les Miserables. I always felt that extra credit projects to raise one grade were counterproductive.
posted by Scott Catledge on 4-21-2008 at 7:12 pm
AHHHHHHHH! MY HEADS EXPLODING WITH ANOTHER CONFUSING PIECE OF KNOWLEDGE WOULD WEBSTER HAVE KILLED HIMSELF IF HE KNEW HE HAD CREATED THIS MONSTER.
posted by blake on 10-21-2008 at 6:07 pm
by the time i finished that article, my brain started reading it as “Boo-FALL-oh.”
why.
*hurt*
posted by Levi on 3-23-2009 at 5:30 pm
This is why I hate linguistics. It might be interesting to look at a sentence like this on paper, but in the real world NO ONE would ever say this and expect to be understood. People pat themselves on the back for being clever when they wrap their brain around things like this, but who cares! It doesn’t teach us anything about how the brain processes language. Diagramming sentences is the most useless linguistic endeavor, and Noam Chompsky is a chump! Linguistics is the study of how people use language, not an excuse to come up with bizzare formulations and say, ’see, language is crazy!’ Gah!
posted by Lauren on 4-2-2009 at 8:01 pm
@ Lenary: Buffalo meat is actually incredibly lean and tasty! There’s a place in Dallas that serves buffalo tacos. Mmmmm… Buffalo tacos…
Recaptcha: One volubly… appropriate for linguistics, I think
posted by Megan on 6-11-2009 at 1:28 am
To further improve on KJ’s proposal:
If the can can dance, then the cancan can can cancan.
posted by Evan on 6-25-2009 at 2:43 pm
Noam Chomsky reads Mental_Floss? The man is a god among linguists!
posted by tycho on 7-6-2009 at 1:28 am
Some guy mentioned the Chinese version (it only works in pinyin since the characters are written differently). It’s ma ma ma ma ma (de) ma ma? “Is mother angry at mother’s horse?” And the “de” can be omitted. There is an even longer one which is much harder to pronounce properly for foreigners. Forty-four stone lions are dead. But that one is more of a tonguetwister than actual real similar words.
posted by Cmod on 7-15-2009 at 8:41 pm
Buffalo meat is amzing! Tastes like very good steak; less fat and cholesterol than chicken.
posted by PartiallyDeflected on 8-7-2009 at 2:29 pm
ooh. ooh.
my favorite is this Chinese poem, “Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den”
Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī.
Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.
Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.
Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì.
Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì.
Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì.
Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì.
Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī.
Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī, shí shí shí shī shī.
Shì shì shì shì.
I hope that displayed right. the translation is on the Wikipedia too :)
posted by Scotty A on 8-11-2009 at 6:43 pm
a noisy noise annoys an oyster :)
posted by Julia on 8-25-2009 at 9:58 pm
The old ‘F” word works for this as well, and at least to me, is more understandable than buffalo.
posted by lsmith on 9-3-2009 at 7:04 pm
you can make the bababa ba sentence in filipino into a conversation:
a: bababa ba? (is it going down?)
b: o ba. bababa, ba. (of course. it’s going down.)
mmm? mmm…
posted by 0-ssang on 9-28-2009 at 3:38 pm
Seeing this almost literally made me pee my pants, seeing as that last night I attended a poetry reading in which the poet repeated the word “Buffalo” literally at least a hundred times as part of his poem.
posted by Jono on 9-29-2009 at 2:16 pm