Talk:Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo/Archive 3

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Pecking order

The sentence which reads "as a description of the pecking order in the social hierarchy of buffaloes living in Buffalo" captures an important concept in the sentence, but I think "pecking order" and "social heirarchy" are too strong and introduce a new logical construct not present in the "Buffalo Buffalo..." sentence. The sentence says "people who are intimidated, also intimidate people," but there's no sense of heirarchy or pecking order in that concept. For instance, its possible that all intimidating people are also intimidated in the same measure (or in varying measures). Alternatively it may be the case that no one is intimidated ever. I've revised this sentence before, but looks like it was reverted back, so here's the explanation. In a few days, or theabouts, I'll correct. 38.104.167.98 (talk) 18:42, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Error in Extension?

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" ?

According to the text, the second capitalized Buffalo is an adverb. It is not explained in the article (and nor is it clear to me) how Buffalo may be used as an adverb.

While it is true that ten "buffalo"s can be parsed, I don't believe it can be done with this sequence of capitalizations. In fact any number of "buffalo"s can be parsed using only nouns, adjectives and verbs - adverbs are not necessary.

The adverb is being used to mean "to buffalo [bully] in a way specific to the [city of] Buffalo", or, for lack of a better word "Buffalo-ly", so you get "Buffalo buffalo [bison from Buffalo] Buffalo buffalo [bully Buffalo-ly] Buffalo buffalo [other bison from Buffalo which] Buffalo buffalo [still other bison from Buffalo] Buffalo buffalo [bully Buffalo-ly]". PaulGS (talk) 13:10, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

To buffalo

diff in question.

EO gives the definition as "to overawe".[1] If that's not bullying, it's mighty close to it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:21, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Also Wiktionary (and Workdnik) give "to intimidate", which is mighty close to bully. However, I do agree with the change, as replacing "buffalo" with another "b..." word wasn't as clear as could be... :) -- Quiddity (talk) 02:05, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Substituting "confuse" is misleading, as it understates the situation. "To intimidate" would be better. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:05, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't any of the verb definitions be equally appropriate? "(US, slang, transitive) To outwit, confuse, deceive, or intimidate."

Also, we already use "intimidate" in the paragraphs above, and I assumed the point of translating it to "bully" in this paragraph, was to provide a contrast.

(We could, hypothetically, also translate it here as "to pistol-whip" or "to hunt buffalo", but that really would buffabe confusing to everyone!) -- Quiddity (talk) 05:16, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I prefer "bully" since it fits well with the rest of the sentence - "Buffalo bison bully" preserves the feel of the string of buffaloes while using the different words to make the meaning clear. It just , at least to me, sounds better. PaulGS (talk) 06:33, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

According to Wiktionary, it also means "to pistol-whip". Word, son. 194.66.219.251 (talk) 08:16, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Is the reference to the city of Buffalo necessary?

The sentence would be completely grammatical even if there were no city of Buffalo. I understand that perhaps the original sentence used the city of Buffalo to explain it, but should we not mention that it's not necessary? The article even says, "any word that is both an animate plural noun and a transitive verb will work. Other words which can be used in this manner include police, fish..." Therefore, it's accepting that the only necessary forms that the word must take are "both an animate plural noun and a transitive verb" work, and being an adjective as well is an unnecessary inclusion, I think.

Without resorting to the city of Buffalo, it becomes much more obvious that the sentence can go on for ever. At each iteration you simply take the object of the previous sentence and make it the subject of the next sentence, and say that those buffalo also bamboozle.

So, first we substitute the word "cows" for the noun "buffalo" and the word "bully" for the verb "buffalo," and then we mark each equivalent noun and noun-phrase (to make the substitutions clear), and we get

1. Bully!
2. Cows bully.
3. Cows bully cows¹
4. [Cows that cows bully]¹ bully -- i.e. the cows that were being bullied in #3 themselves also bully
5. [Cows that cows bully]¹ bully cows²
6. [Cows that [cows that cows bully]¹ bully]² bully -- i.e. the cows that were being bullied in #5 themselves also bully
7. [Cows that [cows that cows bully]¹ bully]² bully cows³
8. [Cows that [cows that [cows that cows bully]¹ bully]² bully]³ bully -- i.e. the cows that were being bullied in #7 themselves also bully
9. [Cows that [cows that [cows that cows bully]¹ bully]² bully]³ bully cows
10. ...etc.

The recursive nature becomes much more obvious. Each time a sentence ends with "bully," i.e. saying that some cows bully, we can ask "well, who do they bully?" And each time we answer that by specifying that they bully cows, we can take those cows (the object of the previous sentence) and say that they themselves (now as the subject) also bully.

— Sam 15:36, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Edits: I've added in the numerical superscripts. Basically, the second noun "cows" in sentence #3 has the exact same referent as the noun-phrase in brackets in sentence #4, and so both are marked with a super-script 1. Once you see that each segment in brackets is just a noun-phrase, you can substitute for a single plural noun (e.g. "sheep") and see that the sentence still makes sense. — Sam 18:04, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

To clarify further: once we realize that any object in a valid sentence, e.g. "cats" in "dogs bite cats," can be turned into a noun-phrase with an optional "that", e.g. "cats (that) dog bite," and that any animate noun-phrase can be followed by a transitive verb, e.g. "cats dogs bite eat," and that transitive verb can take an object, e.g. "cats dogs bite eat mice," we can then prove from those three axioms that we can continue the cycle indefinitely: "mice (that) cats dogs bite eat steal crumbs." And then we don't need to confuse matters with the city of Buffalo. — Sam 17:52, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

One could do lots of things, but this isn't something made up for Wikipedia, it's an actual cited sentence, and the capitalization clearly indicates the originators' intent to refer to the city of Buffalo.Zompist (talk) 08:21, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Hebrew

In Hebrew there's אישה נעלה נעלה נעלה נעלה את הדלת בפני בעלה - Isha na'ala na'ala na'ala na'ala et hadelet bifnei ba'ala - A nobel woman (אישה נעלה) put on her shoe (נעלה נעלה) locked the door (נעלה את הדלת) against her husband. TFighterPilot (talk) 23:25, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS MEANNNNNNN? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.168.158.250 (talk) 01:55, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

versions of English

It only works in versions of English where buffalo is a verb. This doesn't include British English. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.103.145 (talk) 11:23, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the verb meaning is far from common in American English. I don't think I've ever heard it outside of this sentence. —Ben FrantzDale (talk) 11:35, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Plural or singular ?

Article states: "the noun buffalo, an animal, in the plural ... to avoid articles". Yet later the parsing demonstration translates the sentence along the "Bison [that other] bison bully [also] bully bison." patterns. But it is not told that bison is also of plural=singular words. Either this should be pointed to, or maybe replaced with clearly plural "bulls". Otherwise it looks a lot like grammar error. 79.111.218.128 (talk) 21:30, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

cool latin example

Barbara barbaribus barbarant barbara barbis.--Ioshus ^(talk) 04:31, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

What does that say? I have a limited Latin vocabulary, and my dictionary's in another state. Millancad 05:58, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

something about a beard?

Bearded barbarians barbarize bearded barbarians? --User:Aelffin — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.2.183.235 (talk) 15:18, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

All the more clever if one takes "barbarize" as a verb form of the modern meaning of "barber". 173.2.183.235 (talk) 15:21, 6 February 2012 (UTC) --User:Aelffin

Are the images of the bison and the city really nessecary?

Do they add anything to the article? Or for that matter, would there be any point to removing them? Nyeguy 01:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe that the images should stay. Nikola 10:22, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

So do I. They serve a useful purpose: as the article acknowledges, the meaning of the sentence is very opaque, and a couple of illustrations help fix the different meanings of "buffalo" in the reader's mind. (It's a shame the third meaning of the word, which is the least common, doesn't really lend itself to illustration.) I actually think it would be better to put the illustrations back where they used to be: the photos at the top, as an eye-catching and easy-to-understand illustration of the lead section, and the parse tree alongside the "Sentence construction" section where it would be better placed to explain the complex syntax. --Blisco 19:50, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the previous placement of the pictures was better. —johndburger 00:49, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I have removed them because they are not relevant to what the article is about. By all means link to the articles on the animal and the city, but do not depict them on a page about pure linguistics. It would be just as silly to have a picture of a real bird in an article about Bird's Custard Powder. 86.131.102.112 23:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

As you can see, the consensus (albeit weak) appears to be to keep them, so I reverted. I also moved your comment to be in temporal order, a widely-used convention in on-line discussions. —johndburger 01:52, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The pictures are completely irrelevant and the page itself has no real relevnce to anything useful. It reminds me of encyclopedia dramatica. lol n00bs lol. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.17.167.51 (talk) 20:43, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

What this page really needs is a picture of buffalo at the Buffalo Zoo, ideally interacting so that one looks confused. That would actually be a relevant picture. It appears that the buffalo pen is in the south-west corner of the zoo and that the zoo is north-northwest of downtown Buffalo, so it is conceivable that one could get a shot with the animals and the skyline. —Ben FrantzDale (talk) 22:29, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd say a picture like that would be worth a road trip Repapetilto (talk) 23:05, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Strongly opposed to the pictures being kept. They are totally irrelevant. This renders the consensus that was used to reinstate the images void, and as such they have been removed. --86.148.229.129 (talk) 01:23, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I've restored the pictures of the bison and the city as there was no consensus to delete them. They are relevant to the article as they illustrate two of the different meanings used in the sentence. There was a third picture of a Buffalo Bills football player (presumably to illustrate the third meaning of "buffalo", but that picture has been deleted so it was not added back. PaulGS (talk) 03:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Strongly opposed to pictures being removed. They are at least marginally relevant and liven up the article considerably. --Oolong (talk) 13:37, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Opposed. I mean: keep. Reasoning: as Blisco said.
—6birc (talk) 20:42, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Strongly opposed to removing the pictures. The article is about ambiguity in the referents of homophones. Illustrations of those referents help to clear up some of the ambiguity, thus making the article easier to understand to the non-expert. 173.2.183.235 (talk) 15:34, 6 February 2012 (UTC) --User:Aelffin

Endless repetition?

"Buffalo bison Buffalo bison bully bully Buffalo bison Buffalo bison bully" seems pretty clear to me. I haven't seen a clear explanation of how you get beyond that, though. I don't think you can compound more in English without using "that". I think the claims in "usage" should be clarified, or removed, or perhaps shortened and cited. JoDu987 (talk) 14:59, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

This page is a fail, isn't a 'grammatically correct sentence', and should be deleted

Quote : "New York bison New York bison bully bully New York bison"

Sorry, but their explanation is a serious sentence fail. If they can't explain it without additional fill in words, then it's not a 'grammatically correct sentence'. As the only explanation which makes sense requires additional fill in words, the sentence is a fail.

I rather suspect the 'associate' professor said rubbish to see what type of response he got. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rustgold (talk • contribs) 18:51, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The sentence makes sense and is grammatically correct without the extra words, it's just a little difficult to parse at first because we're not used to such sentences, so the extra words are added in the explanation to make it clearer. Once you understand it, you can go back and read the original sentence and see that it is grammatically correct. The other words are not necessary; they just help. Something isn't incorrect just because it needs explanation; if that were the case then Euler's identity would be considered wrong (despite the fact that it has been mathematically proven) because many people need to see other equations and explanations in order to understand it. Angelastic (talk) 13:30, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I gave 22s2222s2!

You say that you gave a pair of ballet costumes to the archbishop of South Africa and his sister? What a coincidence!

I gave two tutus to two Tutus, too! Chrisrus (talk) 18:33, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Some fish fish fish. Chrisrus (talk) 20:21, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Citation on "any number" claim

I put back the {{cn}} on the "any number of times" claim. We need a linguist or other relevant expert making the claim. If none do, we should remove it. Superm401 - Talk 02:24, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

If we're claiming it's valid based on our interpretation of grammar specs, that would be original research. Superm401 - Talk 02:26, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Per WP:BLUE, a simple statement about grammar is not original research. Cite tags should be a temporary means-to-an-end to improve an article. My issue with this one is that it seems it will be quasi-permanant; I have a hard time believing that we can find a cite saying, "A sentence with 'buffalo' repeated any number of times is grammatically valid". So while I suppose the cite tag is fine for the moment, in the long run, either the cite tag should be removed as unnecessary, or the statement should be removed as unciteable. How much time would you consider to be reasonable to come up with a cite? Joefromrandb (talk) 08:15, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

This is a far cry from "The sky is blue." That's trivially obvious to most readers. The cited grammar statement is not obvious to me, and it wasn't to the tagging editor either. I might be able to prove it (and I may still do so for my own interest), but the proof is certainly not staring me in the face.

Also, WP:BLUE is an essay, and there is even a counter-essay. If there's a good-faith dispute about whether something is blue-sky obvious, it must be cited or removed. Superm401 - Talk 23:51, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

The {{citation needed}} had been there for less than a month. I think generally a year or two is reasonable, depending on how controversial the statement is, and how likely it is to be verifiable. In the future, if you see a statement of this complexity, give it a reasonable amount of time. If after that, it seems unciteable, remove it. If there's a potential that it could be rescued later, move it to the talk page for other editors' convenience. Superm401 - Talk 23:41, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

There's no "citation needed" because one was already provided. The claim comes from Tymoczko's book. However, I've added text to clarify that it was him who was making the claim.Zompist (talk) 22:46, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I've added p. 104, since p. 100 has it in the form of an exercise ("can you show"). It's implied but not explicitly stated that it can be shown. Superm401 - Talk 23:41, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Where to begin? If "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo;buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatically valid sentence, then it quite easily follows that any number of "buffalox4-semi colon-buffalox4-semi colon"s is also gramatically valid. I wasn't citing WP:BLUE as policy, I was citing it as common sense. I wholeheartedly disagree that it is acceptable to purposely leave cite-taged information in an article "for a year or two". The "counter essay" you cite is obviously no more a policy than the one I cited, so I'm unsure why you feel a "good-faith dispute... must be cited or removed" without thought to common sense. I suppose because arguing with an administrator is an excercise in futility. Joefromrandb (talk) 00:35, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

That last sentence was unnecessary on my part. I need to learn to log off when I'm in a foul mood. I do stand by the rest of what I said, and I'd like to add that deciding what "is trivially obvious to most readers" is not appropriate. But neither was it appropriate for me to have taken a pot shot at your adminship, and I apologize. Joefromrandb (talk) 01:39, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. You are right that it is often said that any two independant clauses may be connected into one compound sentence with just a semi-colon. But while "I go; you stay." is a coherent sentence, "I go; I go." seems, seems, out of context, a simple repetition of the same sentence twice. I could imagine an argument against that idea given more context, but although it might be said that "I am; I am; I am; I am; (ad infinitum)." violates no known rule of grammatically correct English sentence formation, to point this out in the context of this article seems to be getting needlessly off-topic and would not constitute article improvement. Chrisrus (talk) 17:13, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

That's a fair point too. Joefromrandb (talk) 19:58, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Let's assume your proof using "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo; "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo" is accurate. It's still original research, unless it is in a reliable source. I am aware that the counter-essay is not policy. My point about "cited or removed" is just based on WP:Verifiability. From WP:V, "[I]t is only necessary to provide inline citations for quotations and for any information that has been challenged or that is likely to be challenged." If someone says in good-faith that it needs a citation, that's "challenged", so it needs a citation.

Regarding the "year or two", you took that out of the original context. As I said, it depends on the level of controversy and whether it seems verifiable. For something like the buffalo point, a year or two would be right. It seemed plausible and uncontroversial, and there was no obvious motivation to make it up. For "Mr. Foo Bar is a <insult here>", "This device has perpetual motion", or similar, I would remove it immediately. You're right that neither you nor I get to decide unilaterally what "is trivially obvious to most readers." That's why it's not enough for you to say it's "a simple statement about grammar." People disagree about whether it's simple. In turn, if I said "XYZ is a simple statement about physics", and you disagreed, you could challenge and ensure it was cited or removed. Superm401 - Talk 03:59, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

As it seems you are continuing to misunderstand the majority of my comments, there seems to be little point to continuing this. Joefromrandb (talk) 14:20, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

If the word "sentence" were replaced with "independant clause", it might clarify this stuff. I would hope that wouldn't be necessary, however, as the effect on the article would be to make it kinda lame. Chrisrus (talk) 15:19, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Chinese example

Just click it. I promise you won't be disappointed. Lion Eating Poet in the Stone Den --99.126.178.56 (talk) 21:39, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I added the link to the "see also" section. It's definately germane. Joefromrandb (talk) 17:52, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

To be more accurate, I added it back. I agree that most of the other removals were appropriate. Joefromrandb (talk) 20:27, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

The buffalo who are buffaloing buffalo in the picuture are not from Buffalo

Replace the picture of Bubalus bubalis buffaloing buffalo with a picture of Bison bison buffaloing buffalo, because the Buffalo#Bovine that buffalo buffalo in Buffalo are Bison bison, not Bubalus bubalis. Chrisrus (talk) 04:41, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

While they don't necessarily have to be, I do see your point. I don't see any reason not to change it. Give it a shot! Joefromrandb (talk) 05:14, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done

"Sentence Construction"

This section seems to be wrong. It states that the first usage in the sentence refers to the city of Buffalo. I don't see how this is so. With "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo", the first usage refers to the plural noun "buffalo". The second is the verb "buffalo". The third is the proper noun "Buffalo". The fourth is the plural noun "buffalo". (i.e. Bison bully Buffalo bison.) Right? Joefromrandb (talk) 01:28, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

"Buffalo bison buffalo Buffalo bison." means "Some NYS bison bully other NYS bison." When it's written with five words, the first refers to the city. Chrisrus (talk) 04:47, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Correct, but it's not written with five words. Remember, the third "buffalo" is capitalized. Thus, the section "Sentence Construction" is incorrect. It can certainly be done with five words, but the article (i.e. the original sentence) uses four. Joefromrandb (talk) 05:34, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

With four words, it could be only either "NYS bison bully bison" or "Bison bully NYS Bison." The former capitalizes none but the first, but the second also capitalizes the third word. So if the first and third are capitalized, the first word just means "bison". Chrisrus (talk) 06:21, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Right. Which is why I'm saying that the section is incorrect. Joefromrandb (talk) 08:39, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not clear on what you're saying. The "Sentence Construction" section analyzes the full eight-word sentence that forms the title of the article. In that sentence, the first word does indeed refer to the city, as analyzed. What part, exactly, do you find incorrect? Powers ^T 15:55, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

The first word is what I find incorrect. As I read it, it does not refer to the city of Buffalo, but to the plural noun "buffalo". "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo; buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo". "Bison bully Buffalo bison; bison bully Buffalo bison." Joefromrandb (talk) 17:55, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

It's impossible for the first word in the eight-word sentence to refer to the city of Buffalo, when the third word is capitalized. That would read, "Buffalo bison Buffalo bison", as opposed to "Bison bully Buffalo bison". Joefromrandb (talk) 18:14, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

This article previously included an alternate, ten-word sentence, that read, "Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo; Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo". It wound up being removed, as original research. In this construction, the first word does indeed refer to the city of Buffalo (Buffalo bison bully Buffalo bison). However, in the eight-word sentence, which is what the article is analyzing, the first word refers not to the city, but to the plural noun "buffalo". This is why I am stating that the "Sentence Construction" section is incorrect. Joefromrandb (talk) 18:19, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

It's not incorrect. Read the whole section: "New York bison whom other New York bison bully, themselves bully New York bison". Powers ^T 20:56, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Powers, but I fear you're missing my point. In order for the sentence to be interpreted that way, it would have to read, "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo". It does not. It reads, "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo". Note that the third "buffalo" is capitalized. The third "buffalo" (capital "B") is the one that refers to the city of Buffalo. Joefromrandb (talk) 01:37, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Strike that. I see what you're saying now. The sentence can be interpreted more than one way, but I understand how it's being used in the section now. Thanks for the responses! Joefromrandb (talk) 02:20, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad you finally got it figured out. The question is, does your confusion reflect a need for the "sentence construction" section to be re-written for clarity? If you persisted so long unable to understand it, perhaps it is unclear. Powers ^T 14:21, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it needs to be re-written. When I ignored my own interpretation and paid close attention to the text it became clear. Joefromrandb (talk) 01:00, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

No worries! Thank you for the excuse discuss the article. Chrisrus (talk) 02:43, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Attempting to create other single word sentences....

Trying to do this with other words. So far the best I've come up with is a 5 word sentence only using the word "likes". "Likes likes likes Likes likes". For this sentence to make sense, and be grammatically correct, there would be a Facebook page called "Likes", or a person who's name was simply "Likes". then they could like the likes they like or "Likes likes likes Likes likes".If there is a way to make this longer, while still maintaining the structure of a basic sentence and still only using the one word, I haven't come up with it yet.

Given that Talk:Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo#I_gave_22s2222s2.21 some fish, such as the angler fish, fish other fish, if the fish that fish fish also fish other fish, we can say that (the) fish (that) fish fish (also) fish (other) fish. Now the question is, could it be established that fish-fish exist? Is there such a thing as a fish-fish? If it would be granted that, while jellyfish and starfish and cuttlefish and such may be "fish" in some obsolete Anglo-Saxon sense of the word fish, they aren't really fish-fish, if you know what I mean, than we could say that (the) fish (that some) fish-fish fish also fish fish-fish, we could say that "Fish-fish fish-fish fish fish fish-fish". Chrisrus (talk) 18:01, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

That is a bit of a stretch. "Fish-fish?" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.154.231.102 (talk) 17:02, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

He turned to the waiter and explained: "No, not starfish or jellyfish! I mean real, honest-to-goodness fish-fish, as nature intended and science describes!" The waiter understood, apologized and went back into the kitchen and had the cook prepare some regular fish-fish - no jellyfish or cuttlefish - real fish-fish.

Chrisrus (talk) 22:59, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think fish-fish is a stretch at all. I often talk about tea-tea for the same reason - to distinguish it from herbal teas (tisanes which are not made with actual tea). On the other hand, 'fish fish fish' is a stretch, in my dialect of English - fish might fish for fish, but in standard, British English, 'fish' is not a transitive verb unless it's combined with a preposition - fish for, or fish in. 'Likes' doesn't work very well, but the article features various other words that work, and I wrote a program here to generate random sentences featuring those words in various combinations. --Oolong (talk) 13:15, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Examples

I just made an edit to add an example that doesn't use buffalo or homonyms but has the same sentence structure. Or at least I hope it does. I have been trying to understand this "Buffalo..." sentence for years without success. But today on freenode, one "Klisz" gave me an example that immediately made everything clear to me: "Red apples green people eat destroy angry chickens." I thought it would be helpful to other wikipedia readers out there, so I came up with a slightly more logical one: "Intrusive laws crooked politicians write trample unalienable rights."

I think it would be beneficial to take it a step further and break the sentence down into parts through conversation. What do you think of the following?

"Intrusive laws trample unalienable rights." "Which intrusive laws?" "The intrusive laws politicians write." --Daniel (talk) 04:48, 10 May 2012 (UTC) "Cats dogs chase chase mice." is the same structure.

I've removed that example, partly because I think it constitutes original research, but mostly because it made that second paragraph a lot more confusing. DoctorKubla (talk) 09:13, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo

It could be made 11 long like this,

THE buffalo FROM Buffalo WHO ARE buffaloED BY buffalo FROM Buffalo, buffalo (verb) OTHER buffalo FROM Buffalo WHO ARE buffaloED BY buffalo FROM Buffalo. --Nad (talk) 00:53, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

The NYS bison who are bullied by NSY bison bully NYS bison who are bullied by NYS bison? Chrisrus (talk)

Yes, he's exactly correct I recently was working on this problem and came to the same result. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.19.150.110 (talk) 01:13, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to nominate that the article be replaced with the 11 word version as it is even more buffaloey (37.5% more buffalo saturation) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.19.150.110 (talk) 01:16, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

As stated elsewhere, we use the example that is citable. Most of the references use the 8-buffalo example, hence we do. —Quiddity (talk) 19:02, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Beyond that, as the article points out, the sequence can be extended to any arbitrary number of repetitions, so there's no reason 11 is any more special than 8. Powers ^T 15:05, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

How about "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo[,] Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo[,] buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo"? Here we state that all of the buffaloes in question are named "Buffalo". And, although this is stretching it, if you were to use the word "buffalo" as an adjective ("mean/meanie"), you could end up with "buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo[,] buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo[,] buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo". --GreatEmerald (talk) 07:13, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Any of the variants including the original 8 word version could be extended by one more "Buffalo" at the beginning. Buffalo kerry (talk) 18:56, 26 January 2013 (UTC) Without resorting to any repetition or questionable grammar, it takes the meaning "Buffalo, ..." as in addressing the city of Buffalo, to tell them the facts about the Buffalo buffalo:

Buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

If you remove an E, the name "Annie Senghas" is an anagram for "shenanigans". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.189.120.191 (talk) 21:05, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

First-order logic

What is the relevance of the "translation into first-order logic"? Does it enhance the article somehow? Oli Filth^{(talk|contribs)} 20:22, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Removed now. Oli Filth^{(talk|contribs)} 21:15, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Semi-protected

While I realize that the protection was necessary, this presents an unusual situation, where unregistered editors can edit the article, but not the talk page. Some sort of link should be provided (WP:RFPP, perhaps?) where those who are unable to edit this page can make good-faith posts. Joefromrandb (talk) 03:00, 21 October 2012 (UTC)