“Buffalo buffalo, Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo.”
Yup, believe it or not, that is a grammatically correct sentence. Don’t you just love English? (No, not really.) The sentence was first devised by Professor William J. Rapaport in 1972 to discuss the various meanings and parts of speech (and probably confuse those he meets at cocktail parties). Professor Rapaport studies computational linguists, as well as computer science, artificial intelligence, and mathematics. And guess where he studies all of this? You guessed it: The University at Buffalo.
So, what is the professor trying to tell us here (or at least confuse us about)? Well, it’s commonly known that “Buffalo” is a city in upstate New York, as well as another name for bison, a hairy ox-like animal with backswept horns. However, it’s not very commonly known that “buffalo” is a verb that means “to intimidate, bully, or overawe somebody.”
Still confused?
Buffalo is being used here as an adjective, verb, and noun. The sentence also includes an appositive phrase. Another way of looking at this sentence structure would be to say: Houston elephants, Houston elephants bully, bully [other] Houston elephants.
Let’s break it down for you. Remember back in 6th grade when you learned sentence diagramming? Of course, you don’t. You’re a millennial and they got rid of diagramming about thirty years ago. However, let’s say for the sake of argument that you went to Catholic school and you learned all about the lovely parts of speech. Then this diagram will mean something to you:
Without the added clause, the sentence would read something like, Buffalo bison bully Buffalo bison. However, as we know with most cases of bullying, the behavior is brought on by their own feelings of weakness. So, in this totally plausible reality, the bison that are doing the bullying, are already being bullied by other Buffalo bison. Hence, we have a bunch of bison ganging up on other bison and it’s all going down in Buffalo, New York. So, the next time somebody asks you if your know the buffalo brain teaser, make sure you diagram it out for them.
Hmm…suddenly I’m in the mood for Buffalo chicken wings:
[Featured Image Credit: Grammar Girl]