“Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo” is a grammatically correct sentence used as an example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated constructs.
Sentence construction
The sentence is unpunctuated and uses three different readings of the word “buffalo”. In order of their first use, these are:
- c. The city of Buffalo, New York (or any other place named “Buffalo”), which is used as an adjective in the sentence and is followed by the animal;
- a. The animal buffalo, in the plural (equivalent to “buffaloes”), in order to avoid articles and is used as a noun;
- v. The verb “buffalo” meaning to bully, confuse, deceive, or intimidate.
It may be revealing to read the sentence replacing all instances of the animal buffalo with “people” and the verb buffalo with “intimidate”. The sentence then reads
“Buffalo people [whom] Buffalo people intimidate [also happen to] intimidate Buffalo people.”
Preserving the meaning more closely, substituting the synonym “bison” for “buffalo” (animal), “bully” for “buffalo” (verb) and leaving “Buffalo” to mean the city, yields
‘Buffalo bison Buffalo bison bully bully Buffalo bison’, or:
‘Buffalo bison whom other Buffalo bison bully themselves bully Buffalo bison’.
This is the same sentence structure and meaning as ‘Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo’.
Just thought it’s something interesting that I random spotted at Wikipedia. Read more at Wikipedia.
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