Buffalo, a tense puzzle

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Don't ask me why I'm breaking my long blogging silence with this morsel, but my brain stubbed its toe on this memory, so I'm going to share the agony. The following is a complete, and grammatically correct sentence.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

I encourage you to figure it out yourself, but if (when) you give up, here's an explanation.

Here's my explanation (omg spoilerz):

Noting that "Buffalo" is a city in New York, and "to buffalo" means to deceive, the sentence can be rewritten as:

Buffalo bison [whom other] Buffalo bison deceive, [also] deceive Buffalo bison.

The sentence structure perfectly matches the following sentence (without place names):

Mice cats chase eat cheese.

Anyway, it's a fun little word puzzle. Try it at parties!