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Fun Facts About English #63

07/24/2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Kinney Brothers Publishing Fun Facts About English 63

The “Buffalo buffalo…” sentence first appeared in Beyond Language by Dmitri Borgmann in 1967. It uses three different meanings of the word buffalo. They are:

  • Buffalo, New York
  • the animal (bison) where buffalo is the plural form
  • the verb buffalo, which means to confuse or intimidate

The sentence translates to mean, “Bison from Buffalo, which other bison from Buffalo confuse, confuse the bison from Buffalo.”

Kinney Brothers Publishing Buffalo sentence
  • The first two words, “Buffalo buffalo,” mean bison from Buffalo.
  • The next three words, “Buffalo buffalo buffalo,” mean “which other bison from Buffalo confuse.”
  • The last three words, “buffalo Buffalo buffalo,” mean “confuse the bison from Buffalo.”

The same type of confusing though grammatically correct homophonous sentences can be made with a variety of words including:

Rose rose to put roes rows on her rows of roses.
Will Will’s will will Will’s will?

This type of lingual ambiguity is the subject of Fun Facts About English #84!

See the previous or next Fun Facts About English.

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