Got the straight dope from William Rapaport.
Joe Marshall and Raffael Cavallaro had the basic example and analysis
correct - they just didn't carry it through far enough. The example
given in <http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/3/3-175.html>:
"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."
is an appositive form presented without punctuation (and sometimes
also with incorrect capitalization). The root sentence:
"Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo buffalo"
should be read:
"Buffalo [who other] buffalo buffalo, buffalo [other] buffalo"
The example is complicated by qualifying both the critters and their
intimidation style - ie. Buffalo buffalo are buffalos from the Buffalo
zoo and the 'Buffalo buffalo' is the style in which Buffalo buffalos
intimidate. Thus in the same sentence, the word "buffalo" is used as
a noun, an adjective, a verb and an adverb.
The full (10 buffalos) sentence should be read:
" Buffalo buffalo [who other] Buffalo buffalo 'Buffalo buffalo',
'Buffalo buffalo' [other] Buffalo buffalo."
=========================================================
His reply to me:
George:
Thanks for your interest in {B|b}uffalo :-)
The sentence "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo."
is actually ambiguous with both your reading, where "Buffalo
buffalo" is an Adj+N phrase as subject, "buffalo" is the
verb, and "[B]uffalo buffalo" is a miscapitalized Adj+N
phrase as direct object. However, the reading I prefer,
and which is historically more accurate, has essentially
the same syntactic structure as "Mice cats chase eat cheese":
the first "buffalo" is the subject; the next "buffalo buffalo"
is a relative clause (with omitted "that") whose structure
is N+V; and the final "buffalo buffalo" is a VP (=V+N)
containing the predicate of the sentence. So, paraphrased,
it becomes: Buffalo that (other) buffalo buffalo, themselves
buffalo yet other buffalo. Imagine 3 buffalo in a row,
each "buffaloing" the one in front of it.
The modification you question--which is admittedly a bit of
a stretch, but then English admits of such stretches (as
the computer scientist Edsgar Dijkstra is reputed to have
said, in English, any noun can be verbed)--involves prefixing
each word in the original sentence with the adjective "Buffalo",
referring to the name of your former and my fair city, with
the same grammatical structure as above, but with the (humorous)
interpretation that the buffalo who live in the Buffalo Zoo, viz.,
the Buffalo buffalo, not only buffalo the other buffalo in the zoo,
but do so in a way unique to Buffalo, called "Buffalo buffaloing",
and, moreover, they themselves are buffaloed in that way, viz.,
Buffalo buffaloing, by other Buffalo buffalo in the zoo:
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
Other variations are possible.
Incidentally, to update and correct the history of the original,
5-word sentence, although I did create the sentence as I said in my
LINGUIST posting, I have since learned that an earlier incarnation
(invocation?) of it occurs in a book by Robert Berwick (possibly
Computational Complexity and Natural Language--I'm at home and don't
have the exact reference), which also cites "police police police
police police". Berwick tells me that he first heard the sentence
growing up in NYC in the 1950s, as I recall.
There may be a brief discussion of this in the Russell & Norvig AI
text.
-Bill Rapaport
------------------------------------------------------------------------
William J. Rapaport
Associate Professor of Computer Science/Adjunct Professor of
Philosophy
Member, Center for Cognitive Science
Associate Director, SNePS Research Group (SNeRG)
=========================================================
Professor Rapaport also provided some additional history concerning
the sentence. He writes:
I found all the references and correspondence. Here goes...
TITLE: Computational complexity and natural language / G. Edward
Barton, Jr., Robert C. Berwick, Eric Sven Ristad.
AUTHOR: Barton, G. Edward.
PUBLISHED: Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c1987.
From rapaport Fri Apr 14 14:33 EDT 1995
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 1995 14:34:41 -0400
From: "William J. Rapaport" <rapaport>
To: ········@uga.cc.uga.edu
Subject: Buffalo
Cc: rapaport
Michael-
It has been claimed (see below) that your NL text may have (part of)
the answer to a question, but I can't find my copy of your book at
the moment. So, would you please read the correspondence below
and care to comment? Thanks :-)
-Bill
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This was sent to Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig, authors of
_Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach_:
From rapaport Fri Apr 14 11:37:20 1995
To: ········@cs.berkeley.edu
Subject: Buffalo sentence
OK guys; it was bad enough that Steve Pinker, in his The Language
Instinct, claimed that one of his grad students discovered/invented:
Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo
but now *you* claim, without citation, that Barton, Berwick, and
Ristad came up with it (p. 690). Can you document that?
It's possible that Pinker's student came up with it independently, but
I can document that I devised it in 1972. Here's the story:
In 1972, I took a grad course in philosophy of language from John
Tienson at Indiana University. In that course, he presented the
sentence:
Dogs dogs dog dog dogs.
which is grammatical and meaningful, if not acceptable, with no
punctuation changes, having, of course, the same syntactic structure
as:
Mice cats chase eat cheese.
Finding the "-s" morpheme unaesthetic, several of us grad students
sought something better.
Fish fish fish fish fish
doesn't quite hack it, since "fish" requires an indirect object: one
fishes *for* something. At that point, I came up with the Buffalo
sentence.
I began using it in courses at SUNY Fredonia in 1976. One of the
students in my first course there is now an ESL teacher in ...
Buffalo, of course, and uses it in his classes.
I publicized it first to the SUNY Buffalo linguistics department that
year, and then gave it more celebrity at ACL-88, when I put a parse
tree for it in the registration packet (I was the local arrangements
coordinator) and used an overhead transparency of it during my
welcoming remarks. And a version of your problem 22.8 appeared as
a question on our department's Graduate Qualifying Exam in 1988.
Since then, I've heard others claim it, but with the less interesting
reading of the form Adj N V Adj N (like your "Dallas cattle..."
sentence).
My favorite version requires the introduction not only of the modifier
"Buffalo" for the animal (Buffalo buffalo are the ones in the Buffalo
zoo), but also for the verb "to buffalo": You see, the Buffalo
buffalo's style of buffaloing other buffalo is *so* unique that, like
Tennessee waltzing, it's called Buffalo buffaloing, so:
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
Buffalo buffalo.
Bottom line: When/where did Barton et al. devise it? (and who are
Barton and Ristad? I've heard of Berwick; *maybe* I've heard of
Ristad?)
-Bill
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To which Norvig replied:
From: Peter Norvig <······@harlequin.com>
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 95 10:26:47 PDT
To: ········@cs.Buffalo.EDU
Subject: Re: Buffalo sentence
I did no research at all to determine the origins of the buffalo
sentence;| I originially wrote the exercise without any attribution;
then I saw a second-hand citation (either in Covington's NL and Prolog
book or James Allen's 2nd edition, I think) and put it in. Next week,
when I get back from a trip, I'll put your story up in the
"Clarifications" section of the web pages, and schedule a correction
for the next printing of the book.
Being authoritative and finding original sources is important to us,
so I'm glad you sent this note. We just didn't have time to do it
completely, especially in exercises and the like.
-Peter
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From rapaport Fri Apr 14 14:59 EDT 1995
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 1995 14:59:56 -0400
From: "William J. Rapaport" <rapaport>
To: ········@cs.berkeley.edu
Subject: Buffalo sentences
Cc: ········@uga.cc.uga.edu, rapaport
Here's *a* source:
Barton, G. Edward, Jr.; Berwick, Robert C.; & Ristad, Eric Sven
(1987), Computational Complexity and Natural Language (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press), Ch. 3, Sect. 3.4, esp. p. 100.
They give an analysis of Buffalo sentences, plus others, like:
Police police police police police
Now I need to contact them to find out where *they* got it from :-)
-Bill
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From rapaport Fri Apr 14 15:21 EDT 1995
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 1995 15:22:26 -0400
From: "William J. Rapaport" <rapaport>
To: ·······@AI.MIT.EDU
Subject: Buffalo sentences
Cc: rapaport
Dear Professor Berwick:
I'm trying to track down the various origins of the Buffalo sentences
that you discuss in your book with Barton and Ristad.
Here's my version of the history:
1. In 1972, I took a graduate course in Philosophy of Language with
John Tienson at Indiana University. He gave the sentence:
Dogs dogs dog dog dogs
as an example of a syntactically and sematically correct sentence that
was difficult for humans to parse without already understanding it
(along the lines of "mice cats chase eat cheese"). My fellow grads
and I tried to come up with a more aesthetically pleasing sentence
without the -s plural marker. We rejected "fish fish fish fish fish"
since one normally fishes *for* something. I then devised "buffalo
buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo". Not being satisfied, I considered
the buffalo in the Buffalo zoo (the Buffalo buffalo) and their unique
way of buffaloing the other Buffalo buffalo, so unique that, like
Tennessee waltzing, it's called Buffalo buffaloing, whence:
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
Buffalo buffalo
2. Since 1976, I have been using those sentences in my courses at
SUNY Fredonia and SUNY Buffalo.
3. Around 1976 or shortly thereafter, I told the SUNY Buffalo
Linguistics Dept. about them
4. In 1988, when I was the local arrangements coordinator for ACL-88,
I put a parse tree for the simpler sentence (what you call
"Buffalo^5") in the registration packet, and had an overhead
transparency of it in my welcoming remarks. That same year, I also
put it on our department's AI Ph.D. qualifying exam.
5. A few years ago, someone told me they heard it at a conference,
possibly attributed to Dan Dennett (or one of his students), but
giving the syntactic analysis as NP + V + NP.
6. Then I read Steven Pinker's new book, The Language Instinct, in
which he attributes it to a student of his.
7. I then came across a reference, attributing it to you (and
Barton and Ristad) in Russell and Norvig's new AI text (AI: A Modern
Approach), though they don't give the reference to your book.
Now, given that I *know* that I came up with it myself, and giving the
benefit of the doubt to Pinker's student, my question is: where did
you folks get it from (and when)?
Thanks for any enlightenment you can give me on this.
-Bill Rapaport
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Michael Covington <········@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 95 17:40:39 EDT
Subject: Re: Buffalo
To: "William J. Rapaport" <········@CS.BUFFALO.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <·····················@adara.cs.Buffalo.EDU>
I got it from Barton, Berwick, and Ristad, but have a dim recollection
of having heard it somewhere before that. In citing them I did not
mean to indicate that they were the definite originators.
- Michael A. Covington
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From ·······@ai.mit.edu Wed Apr 19 19:04 EDT 1995
From: ·······@ai.mit.edu (Professor Robert C. Berwick)
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 95 19:04:34 EDT
To: ········@cs.buffalo.edu
Subject: buffaloes, etc.
Hi Bill,
Well, hard to tell about these urban legends, you know.
I just recall reading about it when I was 10 or something years old---
before 1972, to be sure. Then Ed Barton and I sat around
discussing it in 1982, and we just thought it was part of
common parlance (or urban legend) by then also. Even in the
police police police form.
For a very hilarious take on all this, you might want to
email carl demarcken (········@ai.mit.edu) for one of his
famous "friday afternoon gsb" abstracts--in his abstract,
he works out the exact algebraic formula for any number of buffaloes,
as a joke, etc. These are stored on a web page somewhere in
http://www.ai.mit.edu.html
take a look...
One other thing that would be of more help. .
I am running the local ACL stuff this year.
I have your hard copy (at least, has your name on it)
for how to do local arrangements--very valuable. BUT...
I don't have electronic copy, only hardcopy. It would
be very useful for the troops here is I hard that, so I could
edit it, and cut and paste it for the volunteers, as weel
well as add to it, etc... is that possible that you have
it? it's latex, obviously, from 1988...
many thanks if you do!!!
best,
bob berwick
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From rapaport Thu Apr 20 09:00 EDT 1995
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 1995 09:01:27 -0400
From: "William J. Rapaport" <rapaport>
To: ·······@ai.mit.edu, ········@cs.buffalo.edu
Subject: Re: buffaloes, etc.
Bob-
Thanks much for the info on buffalo! So if you heard it before 1972,
and I know I came up with it on my own, that means that at least 2
native speakers of English discovered this odd sentence--odd not only
because of its opaque surface syntax vis-a-vis its deep syntax, but
odd also because of its lexicon--independently, which makes one wonder
about how odd it is after all! :-)
As for ACL, sure I'll send you the online version, though it's in
ditroff -me, not latex. If you need other help, let me know, though
Jan Wiebe, who did ACL last year, was my student and my "apprentice"
when I did ACL here in '88, so she should be a first-rate source of
info.
-Bill
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Michael Covington <········@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Buffalo sentences
To: "William J. Rapaport" <········@CS.BUFFALO.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <·····················@adara.cs.Buffalo.EDU>
One more place to look: Dover Publications publishes a reprint of a
late 19th century book called "Oddities and Curiosities of Language
and Literature" or something like that. If the Buffalo-sentence (or
the police sentence, etc.) was current in Victorian times, it will be
there.
Here's a sentence from H. P. V. Nunn's _Elements of New Testament
Greek_ (1951, originally published 1916):
"He said that that that that man said was false."
- Michael A. Covington
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: ········@ai.mit.edu (Carl de Marcken)
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 95 13:40:07 EDT
To: ········@cs.buffalo.edu
Cc: ·······@ai.mit.edu, ········@ai.mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <·····················@adara.cs.Buffalo.EDU>
(········@cs.buffalo.edu)
Subject: Re: buffalo sentences
Bill,
I first heard of the Buffalo sentences from Bob, who also mentions in
his book "French" and "police". I might add "char" to the list. (It
would be easy enough to do a search for more appropriate words).
I actually use the sentences occasionally to verify performance of
parsing systems- to make sure they conform to expected polynomial
parsing times. And I have found over the years that I can produce and
analyze the sentences pretty easily.
In the GSB message below (I send out a humorous message to a large
mailing list at the AI lab here every Friday inviting everyone to an
afternoon beer bash), I mention the Buffalo sentences and give a small
grammar. I did once calculate the largest eigenvalue of the matrix
for the grammar, which turned out to be about 1.33 (I did it by hand
so it might not be correct), but later noticed that I should have
added a rule to handle the use of Buffalo, the city, as the object of
a verb: "I like Buffalo", "Gnus fool Buffalo", "Buffalo buffalo
Buffalo". Anyway, the message is below and I even append a short lisp
program the counts buffalo sentences of length n exactly (but not
using the rule just mentioned).
Thank you (and John Tienson and ...) for the sentences. They've
provided amusement to me for a number of years, and I even considered
submitting a silly ACL or LI squib about them. I never did, largely
because I had no idea who invented them. But if you're interested...
Carl
------------
To: all-ai
Subject: GSB 5:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 16, seventh floor playroom
--text follows this line--
Consider, for the sake of posterity, the word "Buffalo". The word in
isolation can take on at least one of three possible senses:
Buffalo [Noun] ;; As in, Buffalo the animals that are not gnu.
Buffalo [City] ;; As in, Buffalo the city that is not Boston.
Buffalo [Verb] ;; As in, to bewilder or to baffle.
Now, gedanken about a string of N consecutive occurrences of the word
Buffalo. A grammar that seeks to describe the variety of meaningful
interpretations for this string must generate at least the
interpretations
that the following context-free rules do:
Root -> NounPhrase | Sentence
NounPhrase -> NBar [ Sent/NP ] ;; "Badgers" or "Beavers
[that] Bovine bang"
Sentence -> NounPhrase VerbPhrase ;; "Brontosaurus beat Boas"
NBar -> [ City ] Noun ;; "Bison" or
"Boston Butterclams"
VerbPhrase -> Verb [ NounPhrase ] ;; "{Bowfin} break [
Braconid ]"
Sent/NP -> NounPhrase VP/NP ;; "{Bumblebees that} Bushtit
bedeck"
VP/NP -> Verb ;; "{Beagles that
Beetles} belay"
So, "BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO" can mean something
analogous to
"Bangor behemoths blame Brighton bats" or
"Bigfoots bedazzle birds [that] bears besmirtch" or
"Bobolinks [that] bharal betray beshrew biflagelates" or
"Bombay billfish [that] bighorn bind bivy" or
"Billygoats [that] Bangkok bivalves bifurcate bite" or
"Bedford broncos [that] Bridgewater bedbugs block" or
"Beasts [that] beluga [that] bluefish blight bewitch"
Indeed, as N -> infinity, the number of interpretations for Buffalo^N
is approximately proportional to 1.3312^N. For 200 Buffalos there are
121,030,872,213,055,159,681,184,485 easily understood interpretations.
To find out more about buffalo, police, char, and the French join us
at this week's
G I R L S C O U T B E N E F I T
at 5:30 p.m. Friday in the seventh floor playroom. Beer, root beer,
and
tales from the dark side of linguistics will be in plentiful supply.
-----------
(defun print-buffalo (n &optional upper)
(if upper
(progn
(format t "Buffalos Sentences~%")
(loop for i from n to upper
do (format t "~D~10T~D~%" i (buffalo i))))
(print (buffalo n)))
(values))
(defun buffalo (n)
(+ (np n) (s n)))
(defun np (n)
(if (<= n 3)
1
(+ (np (- n 2))
(np (- n 3)))))
(defun np (n)
(flet ((it (n i r1 r2 r3)
(if (= n i)
r1
(it n (+ 1 i) (+ r2 r3) r1 r2))))
(if (<= n 3)
1
(it n 4 2 1 1))))
(defun s (n)
(cond ((< n 2)
0)
((= n 2)
1)
(t
(+ (np (- n 1))
(loop for i from 1 to (- n 2)
summing (* (np i)
(np (- n i 1))))))))
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Steve Pinker <·····@psyche.mit.edu>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 95 11:59:39 EDT
To: "William J. Rapaport" <········@cs.buffalo.edu>
Subject: more on Buffalo yet
Thanks! If the book ever goes into a second edition, I will surely
bring this all up.
Best,
Steve
=========================================================
George
==============================================
Send real email to GNEUNER2 at COMCAST dot NET
On 2004-03-18 11:18:32 -0500, Joe Marshall <···@ccs.neu.edu> said:
> Buffalo police french French police buffalo.
>
> Details at 11.
Followups to alt.grammar.bestiality.
On 2004-03-18 11:18:32 -0500, Joe Marshall <···@ccs.neu.edu> said:
> Buffalo police french French police buffalo.
>
> Details at 11.
I think I saw this on the Cooking Channel last night.
On 2004-03-18 11:18:32 -0500, Joe Marshall <···@ccs.neu.edu> said:
> Buffalo police french French police buffalo.
>
> Details at 11.
I think I saw this on the Cooking Channel last night.
From: Matt Curtin
Subject: Re: [Very Long] More Buffalos - was "Lisp puns considered good style?"
Date:
Message-ID: <86r7vpufxy.fsf@rowlf.interhack.net>
Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo
buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.
(defun buffalo ()
"Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo."
(let ((buffalo ""))
(dotimes (i (length (tokenize " " (read-line))))
(setf buffalo (concatenate 'string ; buffalo...string, no string string
buffalo
(if (eq i 0)
"Buffalo"
" buffalo"))))
(format nil "~A." buffalo)))
(defun tokenize (d s)
"Return a list of tokens from sequence S, based on delimiter D, which is
also a sequence."
(declare (sequence d s))
(let ((i 0))
(if (setf i (search d s))
(do* ((idx i)
(lhs (subseq s 0 idx))
(rhs (subseq s idx)))
(t (append (cons lhs (tokenize d (subseq rhs (length d))))))
(declare (simple-string lhs rhs))
(declare (integer idx)))
(list s))))
--
Matt Curtin, CISSP, IAM, INTP. Keywords: Lisp, Unix, Internet, INFOSEC.
Founder, Interhack Corporation +1 614 545 HACK http://web.interhack.com/
Author of /Developing Trust: Online Privacy and Security/ (Apress, 2001)
On 2004-03-18 10:39:07 -0500, George Neuner <········@dont.spam.me> said:
> The full (10 buffalos) sentence should be read:
> " Buffalo buffalo [who other] Buffalo buffalo 'Buffalo buffalo',
> 'Buffalo buffalo' [other] Buffalo buffalo."
I gave an example with 11 in another post. I'll repeat it here. I think
this could be extended without too much efffort, possibly indefintiely,
but I'm not sure our capacity for recursive grammatic parsing extends
that far. Even the speech centers of the human brain have limted stack
space.
"For example, 11 buffalo:
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo
Buffalo buffalo buffalo.
NY bison (that) NY bison intimidate, (themselves) intimidate NY bison
(that) NY bison intimidate."
Raf
From: Tim Lavoie
Subject: Re: [Very Long] More Buffalos - was "Lisp puns considered good style?"
Date:
Message-ID: <871xnqyunu.fsf@theasylum.dyndns.org>
>>>>> "Raffael" == Raffael Cavallaro <················@pas-d'espam-s'il-vous-plait-dot-mac.com> writes:
Raffael> I gave an example with 11 in another post. I'll repeat it
Raffael> here. I think this could be extended without too much
Raffael> efffort, possibly indefintiely, but I'm not sure our
Raffael> capacity for recursive grammatic parsing extends that
Raffael> far. Even the speech centers of the human brain have
Raffael> limted stack space.
Raffael> "For example, 11 buffalo:
Raffael> Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo
Raffael> buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo. NY bison (that) NY
Raffael> bison intimidate, (themselves) intimidate NY bison (that)
Raffael> NY bison intimidate."
OK, who's up for creating the "badger badger badger" version?
On 2004-03-18 11:41:41 -0500, Tim Lavoie <········@spamcop.net> said:
> OK, who's up for creating the "badger badger badger" version?
Badger badger badger, badger badger badger badger.
i.e., "Mustelids (that) mustelids harass, (themselves) harass mustelids
(that) mustelids harass."
Is there a city named "Badger?" Then we could really go to town, so to
speak :^)
In article
<····································@pasdespamsilvousplaitdotmaccom>,
Raffael Cavallaro
<················@pas-d'espam-s'il-vous-plait-dot-mac.com> wrote:
> On 2004-03-18 11:41:41 -0500, Tim Lavoie <········@spamcop.net> said:
>
> > OK, who's up for creating the "badger badger badger" version?
>
> Badger badger badger, badger badger badger badger.
>
> i.e., "Mustelids (that) mustelids harass, (themselves) harass mustelids
> (that) mustelids harass."
>
> Is there a city named "Badger?" Then we could really go to town, so to
> speak :^)
Badgers badgers badger? We don't need no steenking badgers badgers
badgers!
--
Barry Margolin, ······@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***
On 2004-03-18 12:32:04 -0500, Barry Margolin <······@alum.mit.edu> said:
> Badgers badgers badger? We don't need no steenking badgers badgers badgers!
The Treasure of the Sierra Mustelid.
Then there's the ever-popular:
John while James had had had had had had had had had had had a better
effect on the teacher.
Translated:
John, while James had had "had", had had "had had". "Had had" had had a
better effect on the teacher.
Oh deer.
E.
From: Thomas Stegen
Subject: Re: [Very Long] More Buffalos - was "Lisp puns considered good style?"
Date:
Message-ID: <405ae4f5$1@nntphost.cis.strath.ac.uk>
Erann Gat wrote:
> Then there's the ever-popular:
>
> John while James had had had had had had had had had had had a better
> effect on the teacher.
>
> Translated:
>
> John, while James had had "had", had had "had had". "Had had" had had a
> better effect on the teacher.
************
* Coffee *
* and *
* Tea *
************
There is little space between coffee and and and and and tea.
--
Thomas.
From: Andreas Eder
Subject: Re: [Very Long] More Buffalos - was "Lisp puns considered good style?"
Date:
Message-ID: <m3vfl05psp.fsf@banff.eder.de>
Thomas Stegen <·······@cis.strath.ac.uk> writes:
> ************
> * Coffee *
> * and *
> * Tea *
> ************
>
> There is little space between coffee and and and and and tea.
>
Which should - unfortunately - be written: There is little space
between 'coffee' and 'and' and 'and' and 'tea'. :-(
Andreas
--
Wherever I lay my .emacs, there's my $HOME.
From: Paul Foley
Subject: Re: [Very Long] More Buffalos - was "Lisp puns considered good style?"
Date:
Message-ID: <m2smfn7x8r.fsf@mycroft.actrix.gen.nz>
On Fri, 19 Mar 2004 12:19:37 +0000, Thomas Stegen wrote:
> Erann Gat wrote:
>> Then there's the ever-popular:
>> John while James had had had had had had had had had had had a better
>> effect on the teacher.
>> Translated:
>> John, while James had had "had", had had "had had". "Had had" had
>> had a
>> better effect on the teacher.
> ************
> * Coffee *
> * and *
> * Tea *
> ************
> There is little space between coffee and and and and and tea.
That would be easier to parse if you added some quotes before coffee
and between coffee and and and and and and and and and and and and and
and and and and and and and tea and after tea.
--
Oh dear god. In case you weren't aware, "ad hominem" is not latin for
"the user of this technique is a fine debater."
-- Thomas F. Burdick
(setq reply-to
(concatenate 'string "Paul Foley " "<mycroft" '(··@) "actrix.gen.nz>"))
Tim Lavoie:
| OK, who's up for creating the "badger badger badger" version?
In case some of you miss this in-joke, Tim Lavoie in undoubtedly referring
to http://www.badgerbadgerbadger.com, one of the latest and greatest
'contributions' to Internet history, similar in spirit to the Hampsterdance.
--
Sebastian Stern
"Freedom is the freedom to say (= (+ 2 2) 4). If that is granted, all else
follows."
"George Neuner" <········@dont.spam.me> wrote in message
·······································@4ax.com...
>
> Got the straight dope from William Rapaport.
>
> Joe Marshall and Raffael Cavallaro had the basic example and analysis
> correct - they just didn't carry it through far enough. The example
> given in <http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/3/3-175.html>:
>
> "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
> Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."
For selfish reasons, I was always fond of:
"Will Will will Wills Will?"
Regards
Will Hartung
(·····@msoft.com)
In article <···············@ID-197644.news.uni-berlin.de>, "Will Hartung"
<·····@msoft.com> wrote:
> "George Neuner" <········@dont.spam.me> wrote in message
> ·······································@4ax.com...
> >
> > Got the straight dope from William Rapaport.
> >
> > Joe Marshall and Raffael Cavallaro had the basic example and analysis
> > correct - they just didn't carry it through far enough. The example
> > given in <http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/3/3-175.html>:
> >
> > "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
> > Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."
>
> For selfish reasons, I was always fond of:
>
> "Will Will will Wills Will?"
By Will's will's will, Will's will will will Will's will when Will's
will's will will will Will's will.
E.