Excuse me, how many buffalo?

Occasionally, I look at a random entry in Wikipedia. I fell on this one today, and it really got my brain itchy.

This English sentence is gramatically correct:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

Yikes.

Which reminds me of an English joke (and definitely not a Scottish one, because the accents are so different!).

Question: What’s the difference between a buffalo and a bison?

Answer: Well, you can’t wash your hands in a buffalo…

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5 Responses to “Excuse me, how many buffalo?

  • 1
    goldcoaster AUSTRALIA Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.4
    June 4th, 2007 00:44

    straight away I thought that’s “a grammatically correct sentence used as an example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated constructs” :)

    The bison joke is a good one..

    cheers and thanks for the walkabout entry.

  • 2
    Baxter Tocher UNITED KINGDOM Linux Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.3
    June 4th, 2007 18:15

    Yeah, goldcoaster - that’s exactly what I thought too. I was pleased to see that Wikipedia mentioned it. Made me feel vindicated ;-)

  • 3
    nexy UNITED STATES Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.4
    June 6th, 2007 03:43

    Wow never knew about that buffalo sentence… nor the random Wiki link! That is cool. Thanks for sharing :)

  • 4
    Faddy SINGAPORE Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.4
    June 6th, 2007 14:02

    ok something new learnt today! :D thanks!

  • 5
    Sally JAPAN Windows XP Internet Explorer 7.0
    June 8th, 2007 17:05

    love the buffalo thing, and the bison joke.
    cool blog.



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