James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher
July 2nd, 2008 by MarkI found this sentence on a social aggregator the other day:
James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher.
The sentence is grammatically correct, but only madness would lead anyone to diagram it. Even with punctuation it’s a bit difficult for some to parse:
James, while John had had “had”, had had “had had”; “had had” had had a better effect on the teacher.
John wrote “had” and James wrote “had had”. The teacher liked “had had” more.
It strikes me as sorely unjust that this kind of madness parses, but harmlessly nesting a few parenthesis is taboo.
:
July 4th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Try this one: “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.”
Here are the three intended definitions of “buffalo”:
* c. The city of Buffalo, New York (or any other place named “Buffalo”), which is used as an adjective in the sentence and is followed by the animal;
* a. The animal buffalo, in the plural (equivalent to “buffaloes” or “buffalos”), in order to avoid articles (a noun);
* v. The verb “buffalo” meaning to bully, confuse, deceive, or intimidate.
Being “grammatically correct” is not particularly useful without also having correct punctuation and being “semantically correct”.
July 7th, 2008 at 3:38 am
I think the buffalo8 sentence is more famous than the had11 sentence, but I didn’t find it as striking. It’s so contrived that I can’t even imagine someone wanting to express the idea. The had11 sentence is pathological, but at least the premise makes sense. I, as a teacher, can imagine thinking that James writing “had had” is better than John writing “had”.
That said, both sentences are crazy, and I still want to nest parenthesis.
July 22nd, 2008 at 5:48 am
So, what’s the meaning of the 8 buffalo sentence? I don’t get it and it drives me crazy…
July 23rd, 2008 at 2:16 am
The meaning is roughly as follows, substituting buffalo(n) with ‘bison’ and buffalo(v) with ‘intimidate’:
July 23rd, 2008 at 2:22 am
The had11 sentence was probably created by a somewhat brainy musician, programmer, or bored kid.
The buffalo8 sentence, on the other hand, was probably created by one of those people whose soul consists of pure evil. It’s demented and goes against all sensibility.
The structure is kind of like this:
Buffalo buffalo = buffalo from Buffalo, NY
Buffalo buffalo buffalo = buffalo from Buffalo bully
(Buffalo buffalo) (Buffalo buffalo buffalo) =
buffalo from Buffalo who (other) buffalo from Buffalo bully
((Buffalo buffalo) (Buffalo buffalo buffalo)) buffalo (Buffalo buffalo) =
Buffalo from Buffalo, who (other) buffalo from Buffalo bully, bully (yet other) buffalo from Buffalo.
It’s ridiculous. It’s about three groups of buffalo, all from the same city bullying each other.
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:30 am
Thank you! Can you tell English is not my forte? ^_^
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:12 am
Wow, Matt. You were quick on that one.
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:14 am
I cheated and looked at the wikipedia article…
July 25th, 2008 at 2:20 am
Couldn’t you have a fourth set of buffalo, bullying the third group of bufallo to extend it further?
((Buffalo buffalo) (Buffalo buffalo) buffalo)) buffalo ((Buffalo buffalo) (Buffalo buffalo) buffalo))
July 25th, 2008 at 5:22 am
Yeah. There’s no limit to it. It’s buffalo all the way down.