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"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." is a grammatically valid sentence used as an example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated constructs. It was featured in Steven Pinker's 1994 book The Language Instinct, but is known to have been around before February 1992 when it was posted to Linguist List by William J. Rapaport, an associate professor at the University at Buffalo.

Sentences of this type, although not in such a refined form, have been known for a long time. A classical example is a proverb "Don't trouble trouble until trouble troubles you".

Sentence construction

The sentence is unpunctuated and uses three different readings of the word "buffalo". In order of their first use, these are:

1. The city of Buffalo, New York.
2. The animal "buffalo", in the plural (equivalent to "buffaloes"), in order to avoid articles.
3. The verb "buffalo", meaning to confuse, deceive, or intimidate

Marking each "buffalo" with its use as numbered above gives:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Thus, the sentence turns into a description of the pecking order in the social hierarchy of buffaloes from the Buffalo zoo:

buffalo(es) from Buffalo buffalo(es) from Buffalo intimidate intimidate buffalo(es) Buffalo.

Other than the obvious confusion caused by the homophones, the sentence is difficult to parse for several reasons:

1. The use of "buffalo" as a verb is not particularly common and itself has several meanings.
2. The construction in the plural makes the verb "buffalo", like the city, rather than "buffaloes".
3. The choice of "buffalo" rather than "buffaloes" as the plural form of the noun makes it identical to the verb.
4. There are no grammatical cues from syntactically significant words such as articles (again possible because of the plural construction) or "that".
5. The absence of punctuation makes it difficult to read the flow of the sentence.
6. Consequently, it is a garden path sentence, i.e., it cannot be parsed by reading one word at a time without backtracking.
7. The length of the sentence reaches the limitations of human ability to parse structure and meaning.

How to parse the sentence

If a comma is allowed between subject and predicate, and the optional "that" is included, the sentence becomes:

Buffalo buffalo that Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Substituting the alternative plural produces:

Buffalo buffaloes that Buffalo buffaloes buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffaloes.

If the homophones were then replaced with other words, it would look like:

New York bison that New York bison intimidate, intimidate New York bison.

Finally, using common articles produces:

The Buffalo bison that Buffalo bison intimidate, intimidate Buffalo bison.

It may help to consider the following sentence, which has the same grammatical structure as the original.

Many things many people say confuse many people.

Generalization

This sentence can also be thought of as not just an example of how a single word-form can be repeated many times in a sentence, but is often used to show how one word-form can be repeated unboundedly many times. That is, it is just one example drawn from an infinite set of sentences

{buffalo | n >= 1}

all of which are grammatical and interpretable. Thus it demonstrates how (a fragment of) natural language can be infinitely productive even with just a vocabulary of one word-form. Most of the examples below do not have this property of unboundedness.

Similar examples

English

• Fuck, famously has multiple uses as well: "Fuck! I hope those fucking fuckers get fucked for the fuck that they fucking fucked." or even more succinctly "Fuck! Fucking fucker's fucking fucked!" which means "Darn, it's broken." There have also been attempts to use Fuck as every possible part of speech in one sentence: "Fuck, fucking Fucker fucked the fuckers fuckingly!"
• Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign' 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? (This is also an example of the use-mention distinction.)
• Computer Programmers will generally understand the following: "There's a difference between And and And And". This refers to the difference between the programming constructs & versus && in languages like C++ and Java, using And as a noun in this case.
• Badgers badgers badger badger badgers, by Boris Johnson in Have I Got News For You
• Bore bore bore bore bore bore bore bore bore bore bore. The bore-bore (someone boring about tidal bores) once borne by bore-bore (piggy-back style) bore (carried) bore-bore bore-bore bore (the bore-bore a bore-bore bore). Perhaps this is only possible in head-line English.
• Bore boar Bore boar bore bore Bore boar bore boar. There are boar that live in the Severn Tidal bore. They are Bore-boar. People who are too interested in them are Bore-boar bores. But the Bore-boar (pl) that bore (carried) Bore-boar bore (make yawn) Bore-boar bore boar (the boar that bores that are interested in Bore-boar are interested in). This can be made more complicated.
• Cowes cows Cowes cows cow cow Cowes cows.(Cowes is on the Isle of Wight) (The) Cowes cows (that) Cowes cows cow (frighten), (themselves) cow (frighten) Cowes cows
• Dogs dogs dog dog dogs
• Who polices the police? - The police police. So, who polices the police police? Police police police police police police. (see Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?)
• A joke, in which a conductor, when asked how long will the train stay at the station, answered "From two to two to two two" (from 2 minutes to 2 O'clock, to 2 minutes past 2 O'clock). When asked the same question about a second train that will be at the station for the same period, he answered "From two to two to two two, too".
• "I wonder whether the wether will weather the weather, or whether the wether the weather will kill" is a similar nature-related expression used to teach about homophones and syntax.
• If you have a mint after dinner, and then you have another, is the second one an after after dinner mint mint? This can be repeated to former longer and longer questions.
• "Which witch watched which watch."
• "That that is is that that that that is not is not."
• "That that that that had been had been that that that had been had been unexpected."
• "When a Doctor's ill and another Doctor comes to doctor the ill Doctor, will the Doctor doctoring the ill Doctor, doctor the ill Doctor the way the ill Doctor wants, or will the Doctor doctoring the ill Doctor doctor the ill doctor the way the Doctor doctoring the ill Doctor wants?"

Had had had

The linguistic folklore has several examples involving the verb "had" They are considered to be part of professional humor of linguists and included in many English language primers for foreigners for adding some amusement to the tedious work of language learning.

• The last boss she had had had had enough of her.
• John, where Bill had had 'had', had had 'had had'. 'Had had' had had the teacher's approval.

Other languages

• In Serbian, the sentence "Горе горе горе горе" (Gore gore gore gore), means "up there the forests are burning worse" (however, the words have different accents).
• In Croatian, the sentence "Gore gore gore gore" means "up there the hills are burning worse" (however, the words have different accents).
• In a Korean dialect, "gaga gaga ga ga?" means "Is that person (first gaga) Ga family's (second gaga) member (first ga) ? (last ga indicates it is a question)".
• In Malay lovers can say "Sayang, sayang, sayang sayang sayang. Sayang sayang sayang?", which translates to "Darling, I love you. Do you love me?". This is a true homophone as the same word is used for pronoun and verb. The person being asked can even reply "Sayang," or "Sayang sayang sayang," in return.
• In Japanese, "Uraniwa niwa niwa niwa niwa niwa niwatori ga iru." (There are two chickens in the back yard and two in the front yard.) is a well-known tongue-twister.　"Tōō-o ōō" (東欧を覆おう) means "Let's cover Eastern Europe."
• In Mandarin Chinese, "Ma ma ma ma ma ma ma ma ma ma" means "Does Mother scold horses or do horses scold Mother?" However, Mandarin is a tonal language, so the words above are not true homophones. This sentence is used as an exercise to show the contrastive nature of Chinese tones and practice their correct realizations. A similar example is the poem Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den, in which shi is repeated with varying intonations.
• In Norwegian, the sentence "Avstanden mellom Ole og og og og og Kari har økt", meaning roughly "The distance between Ole and 'and' and 'and' and Kari has been increased.", could be uttered to explain that three words on a sign ("Kari og Ole") has been moved further away from each other.
• In Hungarian bölény bölény bölény bölény bölény bölény bölény bölény is roughly counting bison in an old folk legend, as sung by gradeschoolers in the playground.
• In German, "Wenn hinter Fliegen Fliegen fliegen, fliegen Fliegen Fliegen nach" means "If flies fly after flies, flies fly behind flies."
• In Dutch, "Als In Bergen, bergen bergen bergen bergen bergen bergen bergen bergen bergen bergen.". Roughly meaning: "If in Bergen, heaps of mountains salvage heaps of mountains, then heaps of mountains salvage heaps of mountains".
• In Finnish, "Kokoa kokko kokoon. Koko kokkoko? Koko kokko." means "Build a bonfire. Whole bonfire? Whole bonfire." Another sentence is "Piilevät piilevät piileviä piileviä piilevissä piilevissä". Also, "Tuu kattoon kattoon kun kärpänen tapettiin tapettiin" (dialectal), meaning "Come to the ceiling to take a look at a fly that was killed on the wallpaper". "Etsivät etsivät etsivät etsivät etsivät", meaning "Investigators search for investigators that search for investigators".
• In Spanish - "¿Cómo cómo como? ¡Como como como!" means ¿Qué significas “cómo tú comes”? ¡Yo como cómo yo como! or "What do you mean 'how do I eat'? I eat how I eat!", provided the correct emphasis on each como.
• A short story by Robert Sheckley Shall We Have a Little Talk? (a 1965 Nebula Award for Best Novelette) describes a planet where language mutates so fast that an Earthman colonizer cannot catch up with it: the yesterday's version he learned overnight hypnopaedically, tomorrow is no longer in use. The Earthman accepted his defeat when he was addressed thusly: Mun mun-mun-mun. Mun mun mun; mun mun mun; mun mun. Mun, mun mun mun--mun mun mun. Mun-mun? Mun mun mun mun!.
• In Russian, a well-known brainteaser is the task to fragment the following sequence into words to make a meaningful text: "kolokolokolokola" (Answer: "kol okolo kolokola", meaning "the stake (is) near the bell", or "kolokol okolo kola", meaning "the bell (is) near the stake", or "kol, o, kol okolo kola", meaning "The stake, oh, the stake near (another) stake")
• In Swedish and Danish, "Får får får? Får får Lamm!" which translates to "Do sheep give birth to sheep? (No,) sheep give birth to lambs!" Extended Danish variant is: "Får får får? Nej, får får ikke får for får får lam".
• In Thai, "Mai mai mai mai, mai." While, due to the tonal nature of the Thai language, each "mai" is pronounced differently, this is a complete sentence. The translation is something like, "New wood doesn't burn, does it?" The canonical answer is "Mai mai mai mai," again intoning each mai differently, which means "New wood doesn't burn." Word for word, the question is translated "Wood new not burn <interrogative particle>" and the reply is "Wood new not burn."
• In Hebrew, אשה נעלה נעלה נעלה נעלה את הדלת בפני בעלה (Isha na'ala na'ala na'ala na'ala et hadelet bifnei ba'ala) means "A respectable woman put on her shoe, locked the door in front of her husband". 'נעל' (na'al) means 'put on (footwear)' and hence also 'shoe', but also means 'lock'. 'עלה' ('alah') means 'raise', from which the niphal 'נעלה' means 'exalted' or 'noble'.
• In Latin, "Malo malo malo malo" means "I'd rather be in an apple tree than a bad man in adversity." In "Latin ...For Dummies", a similarly constructed sentence is found, though not of homonyms, but is very close and is made more difficult by the non-use of spaces between words in early Latin texts: Miminumiumnibiumminimimuniumnimiumbunimuniminumimminuibibiminimumbolunt; which tranlates to "The tiny mimes of the snow spirits in no way wish, while they are alive, the tremendous task of the wine of the defenses to be diminished."
• In Filipino the interrogative sentence "Bababa ba?", which is translated to English as "(is someone) Going down?", is used when a driver asks his passengers if they intend to go out of the vehicle. An extension is the following exchange in an elevator: "Baba, bababa ba?" "Bababa." "Ba, bababa!" which means: "Baba (proper name), (is this elevator) going down?" "(Yes, it is) going down." "Oh! (amazed) So it's going down!")
• In Tamil, in the 12th couplet of the Thirukkural, it says, "Thuuppaarkkuth thuppaaya thuppaakith thuppaarkkuth thuppaaya thuvum mazhai". Roughly translated into English as "The rain begets the food we eat; And forms a food and drink concrete". Many such couplets (with homophones) are found in this literary work.
• In Catalan, "Cap cap cap" means "no head enters". A larger form is "En cap cap cap el que cap en aquest cap" that means "in no head enters what enters in this head".
• In Turkish, " 'Müdür müdür müdür' müdür?" means "'Is the manager the manager?', is that the question we are discussing?". Also in Turkish, "Yüzeyden yüze yüze, yüz yüze yüzleşmiş yüz yüzü yüz." means "Skin hundred faces that are facing each other as you are swimming above the water."
• In Papiamento, "No ta Tatata ta tata di Tatata, sino ta tata di Tatata su tata ta tata di Tatata". Rougly meaning: "It's not Tatata who's the father of Tatata, but the father of Tatata's father is the father of Tatata."
• In French : "Si ton tonton tond ton tonton, ton tonton tondu sera" . Which gives literally: If your uncle shaves your uncle, your uncle shaved will be.
• Also in French: "Si six scies scient six cyprès, six cents scies scient six cents cyprès." Which translates to: "If six saws saw six cypress trees, six hundred saws saw six hundred cypress trees." (Si, six, scies, scient, and the first syllable of cyprès are all pronounced more or less the same in French - similar to the English "see".)
• in Cantonese, the phrase "gò go gó gò gòu gwó gò go gó gò" (in Yale romanization) means "That older brother is taller than that older brother".

Song lyrics

Lyrics of modern songs abound in examples of repetitions, as parodied by Donald Knuth in his mathematical joke The Complexity of Songs or seen in the Badger Badger Badger Internet meme. However, they are not examples of challenges for parsing the sentence, and hence off-topic for this article.

Notes

1. ^ Rapaport, William J. 19 February 1992. "Message 1: Re: 3.154 Parsing Challenges". Accessed 14 September 2006.
2. "Badger badgers badger" of Boris Johnson discussed on "Boriswatch"; buffalo mentioned there as well
3. Anatoly Liberman. "Weathering the Weather in Word History". Retrieved 2006-09-16.
4. "Mical Home".
5. "Niwa niwa" in the "International Collection of Tongue Twisters"

External links

• "Buffaloing buffalo" at Language Log, 20 January 2005
• Easdown, David. "Teaching mathematics: the gulf between semantics (meaning) and syntax (form)" Template:Pdf.

• English phrases
• Psycholinguistics
• Language games
• Professional humor