How many buffaloes can you fit in a sentence? Eight? How about 40? The sentence Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo is a staple of introductory linguistics classes because it’s a great illustration of polysemy, in which one word can have several different meanings and parts of speech. In this case, example, buffalo can be a noun, a verb, an adjective, and a proper noun. It makes more sense to think of it this way: “Buffalo-originating bison that other Buffalo bison intimidate, themselves bully Buffalo bison.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Lauren.
Hi, Lauren.
Hello, Lauren. Where are you calling from?
I’m calling from Denton.
Denton, Texas, right?
Mm—
Well, welcome to the program.
What would you like to talk with us about?
I came across a funny sentence the other day that I thought I’d like to share with y’all.
And my friend posted this on Facebook.
It reads,
Buffalo, buffalo, buffalo.
Buffalo, buffalo, buffalo, buffalo, buffalo.
Mm. Yeah, they do, don’t they?
And, Lauren, what exactly does that mean?
Well, I did a little research, and the only explanation I could find was the buffalo from Buffalo,
Who are buffaloed by buffalo from Buffalo, buffalo, other buffalo from Buffalo.
Yeah, perfect. That’s great.
That makes sense. My gosh, how many buffaloes is that? One, two, three, four?
Eight. Eight total.
Eight buffaloes.
So you just got this on a Facebook page.
Mm—
Just happened to find it.
I thought maybe at first when you brought it up that you got it from a linguistics class
Because this is the kind of thing that comes up in like the first semester
Or second semester of linguistics because it’s a really great example
Of some of the craziness that happens in English.
Yeah.
As you identified, there’s a verb in there that’s buffalo,
And there’s a noun, there’s two nouns in there that are buffalo, right?
And the nouns sometimes can behave like adjectives, and there’s just all this.
I mean, there are longer versions of this.
They’re like 40 or 50 buffaloes long.
What?
Yeah.
A whole herd of buffalo in one sentence?
Yeah, because they take advantage of all the parts of speech plus a couple extra things like reduplication.
Like I might say to you, Lauren, I might say to you, for example, I might say,
Did you actually see a buffalo buffalo or was it just a shaggy cow?
And by that, I mean a real buffalo.
I say the word twice to emphasize that I mean a real buffalo, a buffalo buffalo, right?
Oh, my gosh.
So there’s all these other ways that we can use buffalo,
And you can just slowly start expanding your sentence out
Until it’s this incomprehensible mess.
Now, did you understand it when you first read it?
Not when I first read it.
It took a couple of tries.
Yeah, it helps because the B is capitalized
When they’re talking about Buffalo, New York, right?
Right.
And so you can start to get,
You’re like, okay, so that’s a little different
Because it’s a proper noun,
And you can start to break it down into its component pieces, right?
Right.
You know, the other thing that this shows, it shows two other things.
One, English is loaded with words that are polysamous.
That’s a magic word that means have more than one meaning.
And the other thing that it shows is that a sentence can be perfectly grammatical and still be ridiculous.
Because that is a perfectly grammatical English sentence,
But it’s like no sentence that no ordinary person would use outside of this particular stunt or joke, right?
Absolutely.
There are a lot of places to link to online.
We’ll link to a couple of the more reputable ones where they explain this in full and have some of the longer versions.
Because it’s really fun.
And it’s actually an easy entry point into some of the basics of language.
You know, it’s a joke.
It’s fun.
It’s kind of goofy, right?
Yeah, definitely.
Brilliant.
Thanks for calling, Lauren.
Really appreciate it.
No problem.
Thank you.
Yeah, my pleasure.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
You know, Martha, there’s a term for this kind of expression when it occurs in language.
Buffalonism?
Buffaloni, yeah.
Buffaloni, I like that.
A new nonsense language.
No, it’s antenaclassis.
That’s one of the ways to say it.
A-N-T-A-N-A-C-L-A-S-I-S.
This is where you have one sentence with the same word, or the same sounding words.
Yeah.
Like, there’s a famous Latin one you probably know.
Malo, malo, malo, malo.
Which means I would rather be in an apple tree than be a bad boy in trouble.
And it plays off of all of the meanings of the Latin word malo, M-A-L-O.
Yeah, and there’s another one in English.
You remember the one that goes, James, while John had, had, had, had, had, had, had, had, had, had, had a better effect on the teacher?
Yeah.
It has to do with using had.
That’s a long time ago.
Had a cool.
Crazy stuff.
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