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Do native speakers read this and naturally understand what is being said? I understand the three meanings, but I wouldn't be able to point which instances of th

by hudell 10y ago

Do native speakers read this and naturally understand what is being said? I understand the three meanings, but I wouldn't be able to point which instances of the word have each meaning. I still prefer "had had had had" though: "All the faith that he had had had had no effect in the outcome of his life"

ptrincr 10y ago
As a native speaker, I had no idea what was being said. Seems like a very extreme example. Similar to the shi shi poem in chinese. The "had had" example is much more relevant to someone learning English. Often when I construct a sentence with "had had", I question whether it looks right and if I can rephrase it.
deleted 10y ago
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PhasmaFelis 10y ago
As a native speaker and an obsessive reader, no, I had no clue. I can work it out now that I've read the description, but it's definitely not natural.
vorg 10y ago
They wouldn't understand the sentence when reading it, but may when listening to it spoken naturally, with correct tones, stresses and pauses, if they're already familiar with all three uses of the word "buffalo". Not many people know of the city Buffalo, or use the verb "to buffalo" so that one's iffy. Most people speaking it would use the word "which" to introduce the restrictive relative clause to make themselves better understood. To ensure native English speakers not familiar with all three uses of "buffalo" understand it when reading it, many people would write it "Buffalo-buffalo, which Buffalo-buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo-buffalo."
- vacri 10y ago
  Not even then. It's such a contrived example, playing with the fringes of the language. It's certainly completely nonsensical without punctuation. No native speaker would get it on the first pass, either read or naturally spoken. It's also nonsensical in content: "things from a place, which have things done by the same things from a place, themselves do things to the same things from a place" - it's tautological.
vacri 10y ago
The 'had had' versions are actually a feasible examples, and don't rely on cutting out other words to make them work. Still, it's uncommon to put so many had's together. You probably wouldn't use four had's in that particular example though - "All the faith that he had, had had no effect..." or "All the faith that he had had, had no effect...".

by hudell 10y ago

ptrincr 10y ago

As a native speaker, I had no idea what was being said. Seems like a very extreme example. Similar to the shi shi poem in chinese. The "had had" example is much more relevant to someone learning English. Often when I construct a sentence with "had had", I question whether it looks right and if I can rephrase it.

deleted 10y ago

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PhasmaFelis 10y ago

As a native speaker and an obsessive reader, no, I had no clue. I can work it out now that I've read the description, but it's definitely not natural.

vorg 10y ago

They wouldn't understand the sentence when reading it, but may when listening to it spoken naturally, with correct tones, stresses and pauses, if they're already familiar with all three uses of the word "buffalo". Not many people know of the city Buffalo, or use the verb "to buffalo" so that one's iffy. Most people speaking it would use the word "which" to introduce the restrictive relative clause to make themselves better understood. To ensure native English speakers not familiar with all three uses of "buffalo" understand it when reading it, many people would write it "Buffalo-buffalo, which Buffalo-buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo-buffalo."

vacri 10y ago
Not even then. It's such a contrived example, playing with the fringes of the language. It's certainly completely nonsensical without punctuation. No native speaker would get it on the first pass, either read or naturally spoken. It's also nonsensical in content: "things from a place, which have things done by the same things from a place, themselves do things to the same things from a place" - it's tautological.

vacri 10y ago

The 'had had' versions are actually a feasible examples, and don't rely on cutting out other words to make them work. Still, it's uncommon to put so many had's together. You probably wouldn't use four had's in that particular example though - "All the faith that he had, had had no effect..." or "All the faith that he had had, had no effect...".