THE MOST CONFUSING SENTENCE IN THE WORLD USES JUST ONE WORD Take a guess at what this sentence means - Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. It really has a proper meaning. And its part of a whole group of one-word sentences. The sentence (Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.) has been the talk of grammarians since 1972. According to William Rapaport, its creator and a professor at the University of Buffalo, it means, So, buffalo who live in Buffalo (e.g., at the Buffalo Zoo, which does, indeed, have buffalo), and who are buffaloed (in a way unique to Buffalo) by other buffalo from Buffalo, themselves buffalo (in the way unique to Buffalo) still other buffalo from Buffalo. The sentence relies on a few tricks. The first is that buffalo is a verb as well as a noun and the name of a place. To buffalo someone is to confuse or fluster a person. Theres also a missing that. Under normal circumstances, we can sometimes drop a that from a sentence, as long as the nouns still make the meaning clear. For example, things I knock down dont get back up, and things that I knock down dont get back up, are equally clear. All-buffalo sentences muddle it up a bit. According to Rapaport, the whole thing started in a philosophy class when he was a graduate student, and the professor demonstrated that the sentence, Dogs dogs dog dog dogs, is grammatically correct and is grammatically analogous to the sentence, Mice [that] cats chase eat cheese. The students noticed that the sentence was clearer than it needed to be, due to the unfortunate addition of s to some words. They looked for words with a plural and a verb that were the same. (Youll see this sentence recreated with the words fish or people.) They then tried to add words that could be more than just a regular noun. Since Buffalo is a proper noun, as well as a noun and a verb, they came up with Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. This, according to Rapaport, is analogous to, Boston mice [that] Boston cats Boston-chase Boston-eat Boston cheese. Over the years, Rapaport has had people write to him pointing out that he can add a few more buffalo to the sentence. If youre interested, here is a diagram of the whole thing. S = Sentence NP = Noun Phrase RC = Relative Clause VP = Verb Phrase PN = Proper Noun V = Verb N = Noun
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 08:57:30 +0000
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