
A History of the Sentence "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo." (1999-2015) - mezod
https://cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/BuffaloBuffalo/buffalobuffalo.html
======
yesbabyyes
Another favorite:

If police police police police, who police police police? Police police police
police police police.

And:

James, while John had had "had", had had "had had"; "had had" had had a better
effect on the teacher.

Also, of course Martin Gardner came up with a great one:

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?

~~~
zaroth
Is the first one quite right?

Who police police police? Police police police police.

If police police the police police, who police the police who police police
police? That would be police who police the police who police the police who
police police.

Who (n)? (n+1).

If (n), who (n)? (n+1). [n > 2]

P.S. 10 edits later... Wait, is that even right? Ow, my head

P.P.S. Coding this chatbot is the next hot interview question.

~~~
jerf
Police police = Internal Affairs [1].

Who polices Internal Affairs? Internal Affairs-police police Internal Affairs.

As I used a hyphen myself in that sentence, you could make a decent argument
that English requires a bit more punctuation in the original sentence. It
certainly allows it.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_affairs_(law_enforcem...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_affairs_\(law_enforcement\))
, for those who don't watch as much police drama as my family does, or who
live in a place that calls it something different.

~~~
SamBam
Actually, I don't believe it relies on unmarked compounds, or, indeed,
adjectives at all. This is mentioned in point 3 in the linked article, but was
surprised to see people in the email threads (e.g. Neuner) not get this.

Basically, as I understand it, there are three rules to make this continue
indefinitely, using only nouns and verbs:

 _Rule 1_ : Any noun or noun-phrase can be made into a sentence by placing a
verb at the end.

e.g. "Police police" is a sentence. What do police do? They police. We could
also say "Cops police." Likewise it works with noun-phrases: "[Eager cops]
police."

 _Rule 2_ : Any Noun phrase + Transitive verb sentence can have a noun placed
at the end, as the object of the action.

e.g. "Police police police." Who do cops police? Other cops. Similarly:
"Detectives investigate criminals."

 _Rule 3_ : The object of any sentence of the form above can be re-arranged by
placing the object in front, to form a noun-phrase with the same number of
words:

"Detectives investigate criminals" => "Criminals detectives investigate...
[tend to get caught]". This can also be phrased as "Criminals THAT detectives
investigate" for clarity, but the THAT is unnecessary in English.

"Police police police..." => "Cops THAT cops police... [tend to quit their
jobs]

This forms a new noun phrase (a sentence fragment) that you can apply rule #1
to, and then continue indefinitely from there.

To apply these three rules up to seven words:

"Police police police: ("Cops police cops").

"Police police police police" ("Cops cops police police"): Turn the object of
the sentence above into a noun phrase, from rule 3: "Cops (THAT) other cops
police...", and add a verb (Rule 1): "The cops THAT other cops police,
themselves police.

"Police police police police police" ("Cops cops police police cops"): Who do
they police? Other cops. (Rule 2)

"Police police police police police police" ("Cops cops cops police police
police"): (Rearranged noun phrase, from rule 3: The policemen (from the line
above above) THAT are policed by cops that are themselves policed by cops) +
(Rule 1 Verb: themselves police).

"Police police police police police police police" ("Cops cops cops police
police police cops"): ... and who do they police? Other cops. (Rule 2)

...Anyway, this is how I worked it out myself, when trying to understand the
buffalo sentence, and then was always very disappointed to find the variation
with the capitalized "Buffalo" adjective being touted as the canonical one,
since it always seemed less interesting to me.

~~~
redmorphium
I agree with you. This is the most profound way to interpret these kinds of
sentences, and it exemplifies a consequence of how English allows you to omit
the "that" in dependent clauses.

------
alexmorenodev
There's an entire subreddit dedicated to these things.

Definitely worth a check.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/WordAvalanches/](https://www.reddit.com/r/WordAvalanches/)

EDIT: Adding some good examples:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/WordAvalanches/comments/3ogese/a_sw...](https://www.reddit.com/r/WordAvalanches/comments/3ogese/a_swindler_passes_by_a_bird_in_the_stairwell_of/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/WordAvalanches/comments/6so5w4/the_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/WordAvalanches/comments/6so5w4/the_longest_word_avalanche_ever_at_1366_chars_261/)

~~~
skunkworker
My favorites

The President of the United States is going to debate the Prime Minister of
the United Kingdom. Nobody's sure who's going to win. - "Trump may trump May,
May may trump Trump."

I've never done cocaine. - "My nose knows no snows."

The guy who sketches crossbreed dogs is suitable for the role - "The
labradoodle doodle dude'll do."

~~~
golem14
At least we all know what did the Doge do.

[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Court_Jester](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Court_Jester)

------
durkie
There's also a Japanese version of this: 子子子子子子子子子子子子

Unfortunately I can only find a Spanish language Wikipedia article about it
([https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neko_no_ko_koneko,_shishi_no...](https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neko_no_ko_koneko,_shishi_no_ko_kojishi))
but its roughly "kitten is the son of the cat, 'puppy' is the son of the lion"
(we don't really have an English word for baby lion)

~~~
yesbabyyes
_(we don 't really have an English word for baby lion)_

Cub?

~~~
pdpi
Definitely better than puppy, but not quite specific to lions.

~~~
code_duck
It’s specific to lions, just not exclusive to lions.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Ooh, pedantry, my kind of thread:

[https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/specific](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/specific)

I think it fails on most if not all definitions of specific.

"Lion cub" is specific, lion and cub are both specifiers. But "cub" is
specific to juveniles of a range of species; so I'd say "not specific to
lions".

Interesting then to think which species do have specific English single-word
names for juveniles. Owlets, foals, and joeys spring to mind ...

French has _louveteau_ for a wolf cub, perhaps it has a specific lion cub word
too? I'd imagine Kiswahili to have a specific word, perhaps?

------
codeulike
See also the German compound word:

Rhababerbarbarabarbarbarenbartbarbierbierbarbärbel

Which roughly translates to 'She's the Barbie of the bar where the beer of the
beard barber for the barbarians of Rhubarb Barbara's bar is sold'

Explanation video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3_tRPRt9x8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3_tRPRt9x8)

(in German, translation in video description)

~~~
gpvos
If we're going off on a tangent: in Dutch, you can have a sentence ending in
seven infinitives: "Ik zou hem wel eens _hebben willen zien durven blijven
staan kijken._ " (I would _have liked to see_ him _dare to stay stand
watching._ )

(Although Dutch and German syntax are almost identical, this doesn't work in
German.)

~~~
kashyapc
Thanks for sharing that. I'm learning Dutch (Flemish) for the last two-ish
years, taking night classes). I heard my teacher say you can string along
three infinitives, but didn't realize you can go up to _seven_!

I recently finished B-2 and now "C-1" level[+]---the most difficult so far.
I'm going to persist...

[+]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages)

~~~
gpvos
The sentence is a bit contrived, but any Dutch speaker will readily understand
it. Three infinitives in a row is quite common, four is not that rare.

------
peetle
Police is a much better word for this, IMHO. :) To spell it out, it's an
adjective (e.g police car) verb (e.g. police the streets) and obviously a
noun. Buffalo has never struck me as a very good verb...

~~~
michaelt
Here in the UK, I've never seen buffalo used as a verb, so the buffalo
sentence has never seemed all that clever to me.

I've always preferred the publican's complaint - "This sign is painted wrong,
you missed the spaces between Dog and and, and and and Duck" \- because it
doesn't rely on unmarked compounds like police-police or Buffalo-buffalo no-
one uses outside linguistic puzzles :)

~~~
SilasX
American here. Never heard anyone use “buffalo” as a verb either outside of
this puzzle.

“Police police” (as well as extensions) is reasonable enough:

“Internal Affairs is like the police police.”

“So are their supervisors like, the police police police?”

~~~
code_duck
It has a valid usage that’s somewhat archaic. I’ve run into the term in
literature and old TV.

------
babuskov
I prefer the "ship shipping ship shipping ship shipping ship" because there's
a nice picture (possibly fake, but still) for it:

[https://imgur.com/gallery/pB0VXKq](https://imgur.com/gallery/pB0VXKq)

~~~
Kye
It's real.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Blue_Marlin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Blue_Marlin)

------
appwiz
And then there's the 2002 Chicken Chicken Chicken: Chicken Chicken paper by
Doug Zongker ([https://news.cs.washington.edu/2013/08/14/chicken-chicken-
ch...](https://news.cs.washington.edu/2013/08/14/chicken-chicken-chicken-
chicken-chicken/))

Such an enlightening read!

~~~
jerf
It may not be the original video, but a video presentation of it is available
at
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL_-1d9OSdk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL_-1d9OSdk)
by the original author, contrary to the link's claims. It is probably the
better way to approach the paper, due to the importance of timing in comedy
and the fact that paper presents so much to you in a way that it can't control
the timing, though unfortunately the video resolution is quite low. Plus the
Q&A is pretty good.

It is an amusing combination of video that is a trenchant commentary on the
excessive similarity of the vast bulk of hard science papers, and a video that
my four year old enjoyed back in the day. That puts your standard "family
friendly" comedy movie to shame in terms of how much comedy ground it is
capable of covering.

------
0x0
Missed opportunity for a great domain name -
[http://Buffalo.buffalo.buffalo.buffalo.buffalo.edu](http://Buffalo.buffalo.buffalo.buffalo.buffalo.edu)

------
jstanley
A bit of a stretch, but there's also:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

(NewYork bison [that] NewYork bison bully [also] bully NewYork bison)

~~~
taneq
This rides entirely on your local vernacular having a verb "buffalo" which
means "to bully". I'm not sure how widespread that is but I sure never heard
it before reading an explanation of this sentence.

~~~
thomastjeffery
It's in mine.

Maybe not common usage, but it's there.

Source: From the western US.

~~~
dbcurtis
I grew up in Iowa/Minnesota, and buffalo is (was) used there. But is it a
regionalism or anachronism?

To me, “to buffalo” canotes a combination of verbal bullying and deception
more than physical bullying.

------
dsfyu404ed
It works for any noun that is also a verb and a place name. It might not make
sense depending on what the noun and verb mean but it would be grammatically
correct. If there's a town named Fish then you could substitute fish for
buffalo.

~~~
klmr
No town as far as I could find but several rivers called Fish. So yes, you can
fish Fish fish.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
I can see a Dr. Seuss style of book being written about "smelt" since it's a
noun (a fish) a verb (extract metal from ore) and when spoken it's not very
distinguishable from "smelled" and both "smelts" have are relatively strong
smelling.

~~~
klmr
> and when spoken it's not very distinguishable from "smelled"

In fact “smelt” is a completely valid alternative spelling of “smelled” (see
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/smell#Verb](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/smell#Verb)).

------
mikedilger
What I find most fascinating about this story is the "I'm certain I came up
with this" notion, given the last several emails on that webpage. Memory is a
terribly imprecise thing. We seem to fill in gaps with other memories that are
shaped to fit the gap, or we logically reason it out without telling ourselves
that we are using logic not memory. I personally have very detailed provably
false memories.

------
hprotagonist
always fun.

i’m fond of
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_while_John_had_had_had...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_while_John_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_a_better_effect_on_the_teacher)

and
[https://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/stonelion.php](https://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/stonelion.php)

as well.

------
kashyapc
Speaking of words ... here's one of my favorite German compound words:

 _Verschlimmbesserung_ — "an intended improvement that makes things worse"

I'm sure many of us here can relate to the word :D

History of the word:

"This construction doesn’t just present contrasting concepts. It also employs
a playful use of German’s grammatical structures to tie them together. The
word begins with two verbs – verschlimmern (“to worsen”) and verbessern (“to
improve”). It then conflates their prefixes (ver-), and adds the suffix (-ung)
to turn it into a noun. This process compresses an idea that only a wordy
English translation can unpack: “an intended improvement that makes things
worse."

Source: [https://theconversation.com/why-the-german-language-has-
so-m...](https://theconversation.com/why-the-german-language-has-so-many-
great-words-55554)

~~~
thedirt0115
I've heard that called "refucktoring" :)

~~~
kashyapc
Haha. A German colleague called it "inferiprovement". But I like the version
you heard better.

------
Odenwaelder
A great example of the beauty of the english language.

German translation: Büffel-büffelnde Büffel büffeln Büffel. Not nearly as
nice.

~~~
lultimouomo
I'd say that it's an example of a flaw in the english language: I don't know
german but I think that the fact that not all words are exactly the same in
the sentence will make it easier to parse. I'm not a native English speaker
but I think I'm fairly proficient, and I find that I struggle parsing
newspaper and website titles much more often than I would expect - I never
struggle when speaking with people. I think this is due to the fact that short
sentences omit articles and prepositions, which makes english way harder to
parse since it doesn't have the redundancy in grammatical cues that other
languages have.

~~~
nicoburns
Words being the same makes it harder to parse, but easier to speak/write...

------
topynate
[https://oeis.org/A007477](https://oeis.org/A007477)

“For n>=2, a(n) gives number of possible ways to parse an English sentence
consisting of just n+1 copies of word "buffalo", with one particular
"plausible" grammar.”

------
timstorer
See also the palindrome "Bob bob bob bob bob".

[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=shs1DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA79&lpg...](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=shs1DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=A+Plenum+of+Palindromes+for+Lewis+Carroll+A+Plenum+of+Palindromes+for+Lewis+Carroll&source=bl&ots=mYdUI6EyOJ&sig=ZceJl7Ilco-4TFiZ3n_avbzRWjE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwin35mGhcXeAhXMAsAKHUQ4AxMQ6AEwAnoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=A%20Plenum%20of%20Palindromes%20for%20Lewis%20Carroll%20A%20Plenum%20of%20Palindromes%20for%20Lewis%20Carroll&f=false)

------
dgivney
A few years ago I created a syntactically correct, but semantically
meaningless programming language based on this.

Devoid of syntactic sugar, Buffalo Lang has only one token.

[http://bfalo.com](http://bfalo.com)

~~~
broken_symlink
Did someone really ask for pointers?

~~~
dgivney
It's Esoteric Enterprise ready..

------
jamesjyu
A famous one in Chinese is The Lion-Eating Poet in a Stone Den, which has all
characters sounding out as "shi": [http://www.fa-
kuan.muc.de/SHISHI.RXML](http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de/SHISHI.RXML)

This is somewhat cheating since not all the "shi" are in the same tone.

In general, homophonic sentences are easier to write in Chinese because (1)
it's a monophonic language, so the set of possible syllables is small and (2)
Chinese grammar is flexible, and words can be liberally rearranged in a
sentence and still read fine.

------
alejohausner
Frankly I'm not surprised. The only bison in the city of Buffalo are in the
zoo. As we all know, bison are native to the great prairies, and would be
happy only if they had freedom to roam. It must be very stressful for them to
be cooped up in small spaces. So they are likely to take out their
frustrations on their fellow zoo residents.

Shame on Buffalo for condoning animal cruelty! They should close down the zoo.

------
dang
The buffalo have been buffaloing for quite a while:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Buffalo%20buffalo%20buffalo%20...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Buffalo%20buffalo%20buffalo%20buffalo%20buffalo&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0)

------
drewg123
I just wish my alma mater's website could make the front page of HN for
something other than this!

------
randren1
Probably a more of a statement about my sense of humor than anything else, but
this is, by not even close, the funniest thing I have ever read on Hacker
News!

------
bearcobra
One of the "Yes, Yes, No" segments on Reply All featured this and it was the
only time I've come away from it more confused then when they started

------
pbhjpbhj
How about "man eating lion eating man eating lion eating man ...".

It should probably be "man-eating lion" for the lion that eats a man, but that
spoils it.

------
logfromblammo
It's funny, because Buffalo buffalo are actually Bison bison bison. And when
one decides to buffalo, the other is usually cowed.

------
philodough
Humorous but does this move us closer to true AI?

------
jondubois
The 'sentence' is not correct English because it's missing important
punctuation marks. In fact, it's not a sentence.

The definition of a sentence according to Google is: "a set of words that is
complete in itself...". Without punctuation, it is incomplete; so it is not a
sentence. Maybe it's a phrase?

Adding punctuation makes it a sentence:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

...

Buffalo buffalo which Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

...

Buffalo bisons which Buffalo bisons bully, bully Buffalo bisons.

------
dredmorbius
Polish polish Polish polish polish, polish Polish polish Polish polish.

Uniform in writing, though pronunciation shifts with casing.

------
rdiddly
Goose is one of those too, though the plural sort of ruins it. Still poetic
though:

Geese geese goose goose geese.

------
mercora
i know a german one which almost also works in english: "Wenn hinter Fliegen
Fliegen fliegen, fliegen Fliegen Fliegen hinterher" which should translate to:
if behind flies flies are flying, flies are flying behind flies.

------
Aardwolf
The only thing missing is an explanation why buffalo and dog are verbs. Non
native speaker here, but afaik they are not.

~~~
allochthon
See:

[https://www.dictionary.com/browse/buffalo](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/buffalo)
(verb)

[https://www.dictionary.com/browse/dog](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/dog)
(verb)

"buffalo" is almost never used as a verb in everyday speech.

------
gcc_programmer
This is useless. Also, as a non-native speakee, I don't get it.

------
dwighttk
Buffalo * 10

~~~
davrosthedalek
No plus sign, so buffalo^10 :)

~~~
dwighttk
yes

