Buffalo.

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Fredericus-Rex's avatar
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It's possible to create a grammatically correct and semantically watertight sentence in English as follows:

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

(The capitalization of the the first, third, and seventh instances of 'Buffalo' is very important, don't forget it)

One reason for this is that the word "Buffalo" can have any of three meanings in English:
1) the city of Buffalo, New York
2) an animal, the buffalo, which is also 'buffalo' when plural
3) the verb "to buffalo" synonymous with "to bully, confuse, deceive, or intimidate."

The other reason is the fact that we English have a nasty habit of omitting our relative pronouns, which occurs in this sentence. In the explanation of this sentence's meaning, I shall include a relative pronounce in brackets.

The sequence is as follows:

Buffalo(1) buffalo(2)[, which] Buffalo
(1) buffalo(2) buffalo(3)[,] buffalo(3) Buffalo(1) buffalo(2).

If we replace each Buffalo with a synonym for its specific meaning, then reverse the order of the noun phrases by restructuring them as a preposition followed by a dative, we get a clearer sentence:

"Bison from Buffalo[, which] Bison from Buffalo bully, bully Bison from Buffalo."

That, in turn, is taken to mean:

"Bison from Buffalo, whom other Bison from Buffalo bully, themselves bully Bison from Buffalo."
© 2014 - 2024 Fredericus-Rex
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