4 ms·
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
- Zhyl 7y agoYorkshire (England) dialect. "It is not in the tin." "T'in't in tin" - Jimmy Carr
- arethuza 7y agoA similar example from Doric Scots: "Fit fit fits fit fit"
- vesinisa 7y agoSimilar tongue twister in Finnish: - Kokko, kokoo kokko! - Koko kokkoko? - Koko kokko! Meaning (Kokko is a male name but also means 'bonfire'): - Kokko, gather up a bonfire! - You mean the whole bonfire? - The whole bonfire!
- PrimeDirective 7y agoWILL WILL SMITH SMITH? YES, WILL SMITH, WILL SMITH. enjoy the uppercase!
- Retric 7y agoOdd, I never noticed capitalization making things clearer, but it helps. Will Will Smith smith? Yes, Will Smith, will smith.
- PrimeDirective 7y agoit doesn't and that makes it even funnier
- Retric 7y agoSure it does, while not unambiguous both of these for example are valid. Will Will Smith smith? Yes, Will Smith, will smith. Will Will smith Smith? Yes, Will Smith, will smith.
- damasko 7y agoJAMES WHILE JOHN HAD HAD HAD HAD HAD HAD HAD HAD HAD HAD HAD A BETTER EFFECT ON THE TEACHER. Hm ... No panacea.
- BLKNSLVR 7y agoWhat if Will Smith won't smith? Well, if Will Smith won't smith then we'll find another smith that will smith what Will Smith won't.
- Spare_account 7y agoThe best I can do is "The space between Fish and And and And and Chips is too small on that sign"
- dannyfraser 7y agoMartin Gardner came up with a somewhat contrived but still brilliant extension to this: "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?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguistic_example_sentences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguistic_example_sen...
- Spare_account 7y agoThis is fantastic, thank you.
- wjoe 7y agoSee also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_while_John_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_a_better_effect_on_the_teacher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_while_John_had_had_had_h...
- rgoulter 7y agoI also enjoy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence
- BLKNSLVR 7y agoI was just trying to explain this to my niece last week. She responded along the lines of how messy the English language is, but my counter argument was that it highlights the flexibility of language, which allows its use to be artistic as well as functional to a degree that's entirely at the discretion of the speaker / writer.
- Symmetry 7y agoSee also garden-path sentences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence "The old man the boat." "The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families." "The horse raced past the barn fell."
- Xophmeister 7y ago"The horse raced past the barn fell" is embedded just one level deep. Besides it becoming completely unintelligible, there's nothing to say that you can't nest arbitrarily: The dog the cat the mouse liked hated barked. Of course, language isn't prescriptive, so it's arguable if this is allowed. It's grammatical, in a technical sense, but not acceptable to, I'd imagine, most English speakers.
- thomasedwards 7y agoBarely related but I love it: “it was warm” in Japanese can be said ‘atatakakatta’. With the kanji gives it context within the language, 暖かかった, but written in rōmaji it’s hard to know what’s what.
- eindiran 7y agoThis one is pretty fun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ono_no_Takamura#Takamura_in_later_literature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ono_no_Takamura#Takamura_in_la... "子子子子子子子子子子子子" --> "the young of cat (猫, neko), kitten (子猫, koneko), and the young of lion (獅子, shishi), cub (子獅子, kojishi)."