Talk:Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

An entry from Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 17 September, 2006. There were over 150 edits made to the article while it was there.

Wikipedia

I've often wondered about this supposed sentence. How is this gramatically valid? Using "Buffalo" for the city, "bison" for the animal, and "bewilder" for the verb, how would one write it? "Buffalo bison Buffalo bison bison bewilder Buffalo bison"? It seems to stop making sense round about the fifth buffalo. In the "translation", what does the clause "whom other bison from the city in New York intimidate" correspond to? What in the original sentence is the syntactical equivalent of "whom"?- Nunh-huh 19:16, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[The] Buffalo [bison] [that] Buffalo [bison] [bewilder] [themselves] [bewilder] [other] Buffalo [bison]. Probably. -- ALoan (Talk) 19:40, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Spot on ALoan. The explanation in the article needs some work. violet/riga (t) 20:19, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh, good. At least I can continue to have English as my first language :) I was tempted to add this as an external link... -- ALoan (Talk) 20:43, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah I came across that one! violet/riga (t) 21:04, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

This is so confusing...but so Wikipedia at the same time! :-) --HappyCamper 00:40, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

This article just has to reappear next April 1! Did you know... ...that Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo? Melchoir 21:31, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

This one's a gem :) -- Samir धर्म 06:24, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Deletion

Why delete? What would be the reason?

And wouldn't it be nice to add some audio clips (e.g. in the other languages section) so emphasis, tonality and accent can become more clear? Emmaneul 13:20, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

That is a great idea. We should get the Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia here. violet/riga (t) 14:06, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo?

Please forgive me my poor English, but I cannot parse the example from the ext. reference [1] in the way it was written there. I stumbled on the fourth level: How come "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo" means "American bison habitually bamboozled by members of their own species (that is, buffalo whom other buffalo regularly buffalo) characteristically engage in bamboozlement."? Namely, I fail to see how passive voice comes into play here. Please help. `'mikka (t) 23:01, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[The] [buffalo=bison] [that other] [buffalo=bison] [buffalo=bamboozle] [engage in] [buffalo=bambooling]. HTH. -- ALoan (Talk) 23:09, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Oops! that's exactly the example from our article truncated. The examples from this blog were the base of [the book]. Can someone verify whether the buffalo sentence is in there, so that it may be a solid reference to this article? And an improvement, too, since we can describe a sentence of arbitrary length. (Now unfortunately it is not allowed, since blogs are not valid sources ) `'mikka (t) 23:37, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Punctuation

68.42.67.85 added this:

With punctuation it would be: Buffalo buffalo, Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

I think that's wrong, right? I mean, the sentence boils down to:

"Bison other bison tease tease some other bison", which I'm pretty positive can't be "Bison, other bishon tease, tease some other bison."

In fact the statement "The omission of punctuation makes it difficult to read the flow of the sentence" seems to indicate that punctuation has been omitted, and it really hasn't, has it? Should that bit go? 02:19, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

That IS TOO correct, but it omits an implied "whom" such as this:

Bison, whom other bison tease, tease some other bison.

That is it, and so the punctuation is correct as written there, with the commas at between the second and third and between the fifth and sixth words.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.42.67.85 (talk • contribs) 02:28, September 17, 2006 (UTC)

But that's not correct without the whom. I think. Help I need a grammarian. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 02:55, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

"Red-headed boys blonde girls tease tease brunette girls."

It's not very pretty, but it works without the "whom" (whom blonde girls tease). Then replace all hair colors to Buffalo and all boys and girls to buffalo, and change all instances of "tease" to buffalo, and you end up with the sentence "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." Quod erat demonstrandum. --Tony Sidaway 04:54, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

That's right. And, if you change the sentence to "Red-headed boys, blonde girls tease, tease brunette girls", it's no longer a sentence. "Red-headed boys, whom blonde girls tease, tease brunette girls" is a sentence, but it's a different one, actually, since it is talking now about all the red-headed boys (and it so happens that they are all teased by the blonde girls), rather than the subset of red-headed boys who are teased by the blonde girls. So this business of dropping in the commas is wrong. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 05:02, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Buffalo-city buffalo bully/buffalo bison (that) proper-noun-Buffalo (do) buffalo is as far as you can get legitimately. You cannot omit the descriptors and adjectives legally. I cannot see that this is a legal sentence at all. If one really needs this kind of Mensa-cruft, try "That that that that is is that that that that is," or Elvis Costello's "People pleasing people pleasing people like you" (which is legitimate and only omits potential hyphens), but not this. There are too many missing terms for this to be valid. To say, "With enough tinkering you can understand this" is not the same thing as saying "this is a syntactically valid sentence." As for "grammatically correct," that's out of the question, as the suggested parsings show us that there are several elements that need punctuating. Geogre 04:04, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

The commas are incorrect, think about putting them in a sentence with exactly the same structure:

 Men, women love, love men.

They are clearly wrong here, just as they are in the buffalo sentence. Perhaps you want to suggest the prosody one would use while saying the sentence out load, but that is not the same as punctuation. —johndburger 14:25, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Hare and and and and and Hounds.

A pub - the Hare and Hounds - has a new pub sign painted. But the painter accidentally leaves out the spaces between Hare and and and and and Hounds. In writing to complain about this error, the pub owner's typewriter develops a fault such that in his letter, there is a 'Q' between 'Hare' and 'and', and 'and' and 'and', and 'and' and 'and', and 'and' and 'and', and 'and' and 'and', and 'and' and 'Hounds'. By conjuring up increasingly unlikely events, you can construct a valid sentence with any number of consecutive 'and's in it. SteveBaker 03:04, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Dave1001 03:58, 17 September 2006 (UTC) is this spam?

Ending period?

I can understand what the sentence says, thanks to the second external link, but how is it correct without an ending period?

Cyclic Buffaloing

If Buffalo buffalo, Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo, then there is a cycle in the directed graph consisting of vertices that represent Buffalo buffalo where a directed edge goes from Buffalo buffalo A to Buffalo buffalo B if Buffalo buffalo A buffaloes Buffalo buffalo B, provided that there is at least one but not infinitely many Buffalo buffalo, Buffalo buffalo buffalo, at least the way I read it.  :-) Synesthetic 06:16, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Longer Examples Using Variants of Buffalo

Buffaloing Buffalo buffalo, buffaloing Buffalo buffalo buffaloed, buffaloed buffaloing Buffalo buffalo. Synesthetic 06:16, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffaloing Buffalo buffalo buffaloing buffalo buffaloing Buffalo buffalo. etc. Synesthetic 07:33, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

best article title ever

That's all I have to say about that.--Mike Selinker 06:53, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Yep. Either this or exploding sheep. -- the GREAT Gavini 08:11, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

There's also exploding whale. Shawnc 10:41, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely agree, best article EVAR. --Suleyman Habeeb 08:42, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

origin

sentences like this have been around for far longer than 1992, as claimed in the article. when i attended Hampshire College Summer Studies in Math/Cognitive Science in 1984 and 1985, sentences like "buffalo buffalo buffalo" (and longer variants) were commonly used to test parsers that students wrote (usually in Lisp). other variants were "fish fish fish", "char char char" ("char" is a type of fish) and "French french French".

Benwing 07:48, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Had had example

That solved an argument for me - my wife, where I had had "had had 'had', had had 'had had'. 'Had had' had had", had had "had had 'had had', had had 'had'. 'Had' had had". "had had 'had', had had 'had had'. 'Had had' had had" had had the approval of Wikipedia.

Still can't understand it

This is what I've got so far, and it makes little or no sence to me:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Bison confuse Buffalo bison confuse bison Buffalo bison.

Buffalo confuse Buffalo bison who confuse bison, Buffalo bison.

I think it's a who, I thought whom's only come after prepositions.

The second "bufflo" isn't confuse, it's bison. The sentance becomes "Buffalo bison Buffalo bison confuse confuse Bufflo bison". With other words, it becomes "Buffalo bison (that other) Bufflo Bison confuse, (themselves) confuse Buffalo Bison". The bison are confused by bison and confuse other bison. If that doesn't help, look at the example given earlier on this page, maybe that will (with boys and girls instead of buffalo). Salur 10:32, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Let's replace 'Buffalo' (the city) with 'Boston' and 'buffalo' (the verb) with 'confuse'.

 Boston buffalo Boston buffalo confuse confuse Boston buffalo.

...now add in some omitted words:

 The Boston buffalo that other Boston buffalo confuse also confuse other Boston buffalo.

Since all the buffalo come from Boston, let's leave that unsaid:

 The buffalo that other buffalo confuse also confuse other buffalo.

...or to say it more clearly:

 In a herd of buffalo in the city of Buffalo, there are three groups of
 aniumals: A, B and C such that

 A confuses B
 B confuses C

 Group B, that group A confuse, confuse group C in turn.

...now put it back together by replacing 'A', 'B' and 'C with 'Boston buffalo':

 Boston buffalo, that Boston buffalo confuse, confuse Boston buffalo in turn.

...then change confuse to 'buffalo':

 Boston buffalo Boston buffalo confuse confuse Boston buffalo.

...then drop out words and punctuation that are optional in English:

 Boston buffalo Boston buffalo buffalo buffalo Boston buffalo.

...then put the action back in Buffalo:

 Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

as many as ninety-two possible interpretations. ??

About "other languages" section ... I found this discription besides "niwa niwa niwa niwatori ga iru". I am a native Japanese speaker, but have never heard such possible interpretations. It should be read in one sole way, "niwa (garden) niwa (at ...) niwa (two + counting suffix for birds) niwatori (chickin) ga (presenting the topic = here, "niwatori") iru (be, lay)". I would like to know what was the source.

Not exactly same to "BbBbbbBb", due to similarity in a phrase comes from writing, not from its pronunciation, here is another Japanese phrase "子子子子子子子子子子子子"; though it is not the way to write this phrase, it can be read "neko no ko no koneko; shishi no ko no kojishi" (pussycat, as a child of a cat; kojishi (lionkid) as a child of a lion). It appeared as an episode of Ono no Takamura in Kodansho. Somehow pedantic, but well known, even not so much as "niwa niwa". --Aphaia 10:57, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Does Boris merit a mention?

Is it worth noting that Boris Johnson said "Badgers badgers badger badger badgers" and "Dogs dogs dog dog dogs" on HIGNFY? He explained the structure with the sentence "Men women love love women". --Adam (Talk) 12:46, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Hebrew

Would someonelike to write the hebrew example in the hebrew alphabet and list the roots.RuthieK 13:57, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Punctuation

The article currently suggests that the "correct" punctuation is thus:

Buffalo buffalo, Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Both of these commas are incorrect, just as they would be in this sentence with parallel structure:

Men, women love, love men.

Perhaps the intent is to suggest the prosody or phrasing that one would use while saying the sentence aloud, but it is simply incorrect to suggest that those commas belong there. —johndburger 14:16, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, I just noticed there's already such a section above. —johndburger 14:20, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

plural form

Isn't plural form of "buffalo" (animal) buffalos?

cause this sound ungrammatic to me:

[Some] buffalo[s] [from] Buffalo, [who are intimidated by other buffalo[s] from Buffalo],
[also themselves] intimidate [other different] buffalo[s] from Buffalo. --Shandris^{the azylean} 14:17, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I believe that buffalo pluralizes the same way that antelope, cattle and moose do. Jsbillings 14:44, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Malay

I'm thinking of asking User:Xiorlanth directly since he/she added it but can someone help me make sense of this:

In Malay lovers can say "Sayang, sayang, sayang sayang sayang. Sayang sayang sayang?", which translates to "Darling, I love you. Do you love me?". This is a true homophone as the same word is used for pronoun and verb. The person being asked can even reply "Sayang," or "Sayang sayang sayang," in return.

It's been a while since I've used my Malay much but I can't think why there is two sayangs (sayang, sayang,) in the first sentence. Unless it's supposed to be saying "Darling, darling, I love you" in which case we should make this clear... Or am I missing something? Nil Einne 14:33, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

grammatical mistakes

I was looking at this article, and noticed a (basic) grammatical mistake in the 'Fuck' example (because it was the only one I could actually understand.) The sentence read; "Fuck! Fucking fuckers fucking fucked!"

until (just as I was about to) someone fixed it to; "Fuck! Fucking fucker's fucking fucked!"

Considering this, is there a possibility that most of the examples in the article are flawed? I, personally think that most of them seem to be incorrect (e.g. I would have capitalised Buffalo at different places in the sentence.)

I think "Fucking fuckers fucking fucked" is in simple past tense with a plural subject, while "Fucking fucker's fucking fucked" has a singular subject in either present perfect simple or simple present tense, right? Shawnc 16:35, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

homophones

I believe the more precise term for the different usage of the word is "homonym" not "homophone".

Well maybe...

• Homonyms are words that either sound the same or are spelled the same but which have different meanings.
• Homographs are words that are spelled the same but which have different meanings. eg Bow (of a ship - pronounced like 'bough') and Bow (and arrow - pronounced like 'beau'). All Homographs are by definition also Homonyms.
• Homophones are words that sound the same but which have different meanings. eg To, Too and Two. All Homophones are also Homonyms.

But Buffalo, buffalo and buffalo are spelled alike and sound alike - so they are Homophones and Homographs and Homonyms. To call them homophones is to miss that they are also spelled alike and to call them homographs would miss the fact that they are pronounced the same way. Calling them homonyms is a little vague since you don't know whether the words are spelled alike or sound alike or both. Whichever word you choose misses a little of the information - but in this case, all three are correct. I suppose you could argue that the city of Buffalo is always capitalised so it's not a homograph of buffalo (the animal) or buffalo (the verb) - so I guess you could just about maybe kinda uber-pedant your way into arguing that homograph is out of the running - and I suppose that would make homophone fractionally more precise than homonym but that's one hell of a stretch. SteveBaker 16:40, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

---

Buffalo...mmmm buffalo...

Different title

Given the amount of new homophonic sentences, surely it would nice to amend the title to suit this? Who on earth is ever going to type 'Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo' into the search engine?

--Jayau1234 16:26, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that we might need to refocus the article, perhaps using this as the primary example. I was thinking of "Homophonic sentence" but that would seem to be a neology in such a context. Perhaps "Homophonic repetition" might work. We could just create that as a seperate article instead and move the other examples there. violet/riga (t) 16:35, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

What - give up the best article title in the whole of Wikipedia?! No way! SteveBaker 16:42, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

(Besides - is it about Homophonic, Homographic or all Homonymic constructions?)

Well, it will thill be the best redirect. :-) Although I would vote for the title *Mr. Munchausen: Being a True Account of Some of the Recent Adventures Beyond the Styx of the Late Hieronymus Carl Friedrich, Sometime Baron Munchausen of Bodenwerder , also shortened mercilessly, so prepare to be assimilated... `'mikka (t) 16:59, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Observation: the phrase is actually quite popular, with almost 100,000 hits. Shawnc 16:48, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

No it is not. Only 122 unique google hits: [2]. And I swear that when I first saw this article and tried to research google to verify an add something, there were only a handful of hits. So I guess it is all wikipedia's fault. WIKIPEDIA RULES! `'mikka (t) 17:07, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

NO to Original Research

I confess being guilty in opening the can of worms by introducing the "similar examples" section. The things went out of control, looks like. Therefore I suggest to invoke the basic wikipedia rules: "no original research" and "cite your sources". I will not suggest to apply it retrocatively now, but all new unreferenced additions of examples should be mercilessly culled. `'mikka (t) 16:51, 17 September 2006 (UTC)