Buffalo Buffalo
Keeping with the theme of quirks of the English language, here’s one courtesy of Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct:
This one requires a lot of scene-setting, let’s start with,
Cats whom dogs chase like to eat mice.
which can be shortened to,
Cats dogs chase eat mice.
We can place the cats, dogs and mice in locations:
Christchurch cats Dunedin dogs chase eat Masterton mice.
What if there is no chasing or eating, just bullying?
Christchurch cats Dunedin dogs bully bully Masterton mice.
Why not make them all live in the same town?
Christchurch cats Christchurch dogs bully bully Christchurch mice.
Let’s only talk about cats who are bullied and who themselves also bully:
Christchurch cats Christchurch cats bully bully Christchurch cats.
Let’s move them to the town of Buffalo in the US:
Buffalo cats Buffalo cats bully bully Buffalo cats.
Swap the cats for buffalo instead:
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo bully bully Buffalo buffalo.
And did you know that another word for ‘bully’ is ‘buffalo‘? Let’s do it:
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
There, perfect sense.
Tags: buffalo
