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Thursday, September 21, 2006

A buffalo stampede

A remarkable Wikipedia entry has been making the rounds. It demonstrates -- or tries to demonstrate, anyway -- that the following sentence is grammatically valid: "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." The entry is awfully convoluted in places, but if you're willing to make your head hurt for a few minutes, you can parse the sentence using the numerical guide. The three definitions in play here are

1) a city in New York State.

2) the animal, in the plural form

3) a verb meaning to baffle or intimidate

Go ahead and try it. Similar head-benders are listed at the end of the entry. For instance: "Who polices the police? The police police. So, who polices the police police? Police police police police police police."

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