Here's a good one for the grammar gang out there. Is the sentence below grammatically correct? It took me a bit to piece it together this groggy Thanksgiving morning, but Vineet Govinda Gupta has found a way to string all of the different 'buffalos' together to make a pretty bizarre sequence. Or has she?
I immediately thought of al-alo when I saw this play on words. The reasoning behind the sentence is below (as found on Vineet Govinda Gupta's blog):
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
The word buffalo is used in three meanings here:
1. Buffalo, a city in the state of New York. Eg. “I’m a lawyer from Buffalo, NY.” 2. Buffalo (the animal) in its plural form. Eg. “An average herd consists of 500 buffalo.” 3. Buffalo, a verb meaning to bully or intimidate. Eg. “Don’t try to buffalo me, dude.”
The order of these three meanings in the sentence is:
1_2_1_2_3_3_1_2
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
And the literal meaning of the sentence is (substituting a similar word “Delhi” for form 1, “bison” for form 2, and “bully” for form 3)
Delhi bison who are bullied by (other) Delhi bison, also bully (other) Delhi bison
Its a little difficult to understand straight off, but stay at it. It will come.
Or will it? Is the sentence grammatically correct? If I had to try it myself think I would piece it together this way:
Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo... oh, I give up.
Comic by Joe Martin, creator of Mr Boffo