A History of the Sentence "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo." (1999-2015)

Another favorite:<p>If police police police police, who police police police? Police police police police police police.<p>And:<p>James, while John had had &quot;had&quot;, had had &quot;had had&quot;; &quot;had had&quot; had had a better effect on the teacher.<p>Also, of course Martin Gardner came up with a great one:<p>Wouldn&#x27;t the sentence &quot;I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign&quot; have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?

There&#x27;s an entire subreddit dedicated to these things.<p>Definitely worth a check.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;WordAvalanches&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;WordAvalanches&#x2F;</a><p>EDIT: Adding some good examples:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;WordAvalanches&#x2F;comments&#x2F;3ogese&#x2F;a_swindler_passes_by_a_bird_in_the_stairwell_of&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;WordAvalanches&#x2F;comments&#x2F;3ogese&#x2F;a_sw...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;WordAvalanches&#x2F;comments&#x2F;6so5w4&#x2F;the_longest_word_avalanche_ever_at_1366_chars_261&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;WordAvalanches&#x2F;comments&#x2F;6so5w4&#x2F;the_...</a>

There&#x27;s also a Japanese version of this: 子子子子子子子子子子子子<p>Unfortunately I can only find a Spanish language Wikipedia article about it (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;es.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Neko_no_ko_koneko,_shishi_no_ko_kojishi" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;es.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Neko_no_ko_koneko,_shishi_no...</a>) but its roughly &quot;kitten is the son of the cat, &#x27;puppy&#x27; is the son of the lion&quot; (we don&#x27;t really have an English word for baby lion)

See also the German compound word:<p>Rhababerbarbarabarbarbarenbartbarbierbierbarbärbel<p>Which roughly translates to &#x27;She&#x27;s the Barbie of the bar where the beer of the beard barber for the barbarians of Rhubarb Barbara&#x27;s bar is sold&#x27;<p>Explanation video:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=l3_tRPRt9x8" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=l3_tRPRt9x8</a><p>(in German, translation in video description)

Police is a much better word for this, IMHO. :) To spell it out, it&#x27;s an adjective (e.g police car) verb (e.g. police the streets) and obviously a noun. Buffalo has never struck me as a very good verb...

I prefer the &quot;ship shipping ship shipping ship shipping ship&quot; because there&#x27;s a nice picture (possibly fake, but still) for it:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;gallery&#x2F;pB0VXKq" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;gallery&#x2F;pB0VXKq</a>

And then there&#x27;s the 2002 Chicken Chicken Chicken: Chicken Chicken paper by Doug Zongker (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.cs.washington.edu&#x2F;2013&#x2F;08&#x2F;14&#x2F;chicken-chicken-chicken-chicken-chicken&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.cs.washington.edu&#x2F;2013&#x2F;08&#x2F;14&#x2F;chicken-chicken-ch...</a>)<p>Such an enlightening read!

Missed opportunity for a great domain name - <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;Buffalo.buffalo.buffalo.buffalo.buffalo.edu" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;Buffalo.buffalo.buffalo.buffalo.buffalo.edu</a>

A bit of a stretch, but there&#x27;s also:<p>Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.<p>(NewYork bison [that] NewYork bison bully [also] bully NewYork bison)

It works for any noun that is also a verb and a place name. It might not make sense depending on what the noun and verb mean but it would be grammatically correct. If there&#x27;s a town named Fish then you could substitute fish for buffalo.

What I find most fascinating about this story is the &quot;I&#x27;m certain I came up with this&quot; notion, given the last several emails on that webpage. Memory is a terribly imprecise thing. We seem to fill in gaps with other memories that are shaped to fit the gap, or we logically reason it out without telling ourselves that we are using logic not memory. I personally have very detailed provably false memories.

always fun.<p>i’m fond of <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;James_while_John_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_a_better_effect_on_the_teacher" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;James_while_John_had_had_had...</a><p>and <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.yellowbridge.com&#x2F;onlinelit&#x2F;stonelion.php" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.yellowbridge.com&#x2F;onlinelit&#x2F;stonelion.php</a><p>as well.

Speaking of words ... here&#x27;s one of my favorite German compound words:<p><i>Verschlimmbesserung</i> — &quot;an intended improvement that makes things worse&quot;<p>I&#x27;m sure many of us here can relate to the word :D<p>History of the word:<p>&quot;This construction doesn’t just present contrasting concepts. It also employs a playful use of German’s grammatical structures to tie them together. The word begins with two verbs – verschlimmern (“to worsen”) and verbessern (“to improve”). It then conflates their prefixes (ver-), and adds the suffix (-ung) to turn it into a noun. This process compresses an idea that only a wordy English translation can unpack: “an intended improvement that makes things worse.&quot;<p>Source: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theconversation.com&#x2F;why-the-german-language-has-so-many-great-words-55554" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theconversation.com&#x2F;why-the-german-language-has-so-m...</a>

A great example of the beauty of the english language.<p>German translation: Büffel-büffelnde Büffel büffeln Büffel. Not nearly as nice.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;oeis.org&#x2F;A007477" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;oeis.org&#x2F;A007477</a><p>“For n&gt;=2, a(n) gives number of possible ways to parse an English sentence consisting of just n+1 copies of word &quot;buffalo&quot;, with one particular &quot;plausible&quot; grammar.”

See also the palindrome &quot;Bob bob bob bob bob&quot;.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;books.google.co.uk&#x2F;books?id=shs1DQAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA79&amp;lpg=PA79&amp;dq=A+Plenum+of+Palindromes+for+Lewis+Carroll+A+Plenum+of+Palindromes+for+Lewis+Carroll&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=mYdUI6EyOJ&amp;sig=ZceJl7Ilco-4TFiZ3n_avbzRWjE&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwin35mGhcXeAhXMAsAKHUQ4AxMQ6AEwAnoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&amp;q=A%20Plenum%20of%20Palindromes%20for%20Lewis%20Carroll%20A%20Plenum%20of%20Palindromes%20for%20Lewis%20Carroll&amp;f=false" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;books.google.co.uk&#x2F;books?id=shs1DQAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA79&amp;lpg...</a>

A few years ago I created a syntactically correct, but semantically meaningless programming language based on this.<p>Devoid of syntactic sugar, Buffalo Lang has only one token.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;bfalo.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;bfalo.com</a>

A famous one in Chinese is The Lion-Eating Poet in a Stone Den, which has all characters sounding out as &quot;shi&quot;: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fa-kuan.muc.de&#x2F;SHISHI.RXML" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fa-kuan.muc.de&#x2F;SHISHI.RXML</a><p>This is somewhat cheating since not all the &quot;shi&quot; are in the same tone.<p>In general, homophonic sentences are easier to write in Chinese because (1) it&#x27;s a monophonic language, so the set of possible syllables is small and (2) Chinese grammar is flexible, and words can be liberally rearranged in a sentence and still read fine.

Frankly I&#x27;m not surprised. The only bison in the city of Buffalo are in the zoo. As we all know, bison are native to the great prairies, and would be happy only if they had freedom to roam. It must be very stressful for them to be cooped up in small spaces. So they are likely to take out their frustrations on their fellow zoo residents.<p>Shame on Buffalo for condoning animal cruelty! They should close down the zoo.

The buffalo have been buffaloing for quite a while:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hn.algolia.com&#x2F;?query=Buffalo%20buffalo%20buffalo%20buffalo%20buffalo&amp;sort=byDate&amp;dateRange=all&amp;type=story&amp;storyText=false&amp;prefix=false&amp;page=0" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hn.algolia.com&#x2F;?query=Buffalo%20buffalo%20buffalo%20...</a>

I just wish my alma mater&#x27;s website could make the front page of HN for something other than this!

Probably a more of a statement about my sense of humor than anything else, but this is, by not even close, the funniest thing I have ever read on Hacker News!

One of the &quot;Yes, Yes, No&quot; segments on Reply All featured this and it was the only time I&#x27;ve come away from it more confused then when they started

How about &quot;man eating lion eating man eating lion eating man ...&quot;.<p>It should probably be &quot;man-eating lion&quot; for the lion that eats a man, but that spoils it.

It&#x27;s funny, because Buffalo buffalo are actually Bison bison bison. And when one decides to buffalo, the other is usually cowed.

Humorous but does this move us closer to true AI?

The &#x27;sentence&#x27; is not correct English because it&#x27;s missing important punctuation marks. In fact, it&#x27;s not a sentence.<p>The definition of a sentence according to Google is: &quot;a set of words that is complete in itself...&quot;. Without punctuation, it is incomplete; so it is not a sentence. Maybe it&#x27;s a phrase?<p>Adding punctuation makes it a sentence:<p>Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo.<p>...<p>Buffalo buffalo which Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo.<p>...<p>Buffalo bisons which Buffalo bisons bully, bully Buffalo bisons.

Polish polish Polish polish polish, polish Polish polish Polish polish.<p>Uniform in writing, though pronunciation shifts with casing.

Goose is one of those too, though the plural sort of ruins it. Still poetic though:<p>Geese geese goose goose geese.

i know a german one which almost also works in english: &quot;Wenn hinter Fliegen Fliegen fliegen, fliegen Fliegen Fliegen hinterher&quot; which should translate to: if behind flies flies are flying, flies are flying behind flies.

The only thing missing is an explanation why buffalo and dog are verbs. Non native speaker here, but afaik they are not.

This is useless. Also, as a non-native speakee, I don&#x27;t get it.

Buffalo * 10