Read this sentence…
Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo.
Not only is that statement completely factual, but it is 100% grammatically correct. Yes indeed, that sentence actually means something! It is an account of the social structure of Bison in upstate New York.
The word buffalo is used with three different meanings:
- Buffalo, the animal. In this case, it’s always used as the plural. (1 buffalo, 2 buffalo… same thing)
- Buffalo, the city. Located in New York state, USA.
- Buffalo, the action. It’s rarely used as a verb, but “to buffalo” is to bully, deceive, or intimidate.
So let’s dissect this thing to see what’s going on. The first thing to realize is that we are only talking about Buffalo buffalo here. That is to say buffalo (the animal) from Buffalo (the city). So when you see a capitalized B, you know that pair of buffalo’s is referrig to the beasties themselves.
[Buffalo buffalo] buffalo [Buffalo buffalo] [Buffalo buffalo] buffalo.
The remaining two words are of the bullying kind, so the sentence states that certain buffalo bully other buffalo that they bully. I’ll swap out the words to see if it makes more sense.
Chicago Dogs bully Chicago dogs Chicago dogs bully.
And just so we’re all crystal clear on this, here’s the sentence one more time, but with some extra words added for readability.
Buffalo buffalo [like to] buffalo [the] Buffalo [from] buffalo [who] Buffalo buffalo [like to] buffalo.
You can see it’s a bit of a roundabout statement, like saying that “all red balls are red”. The buffalo bully the buffalo who get bullied. We can’t really be sure of the buffalo’s malicious intent, but at least the self-realizing nature of it guaratees factual accuracy.
Credit for this experiment in homonyms is given to William J. Rapaport circa 1972 when he was an associate professor at the University of… (wait for it) …Buffalo!
- Source: Buffalo buffalo… – Wikipedia
- Thanks to Tyler for informing me of this linguistic curiosity.
