For all the readers of RTE who enjoy the quizzes I present from time to time but would like a little less math or logic involved I have good news. Thanks to Cindy Mascone, Editor-in-Chief, of CEP magazine I have found a brain-teasing grammar quiz. This is one that English teachers in the readership have been waiting for.
For all of us who have not diagrammed a sentence since high school we have come to rely on an intuitive sense of what is linguistically appropriate in writing a letter or a post.
The Buffalo Quiz below will test that intuitive sense or your ability to diagram a sentence.
Please let me know your answer to the quiz – I will post all correct answers or alternatively will send the solution privately to anyone who requests it if no one figures it out.
Buffalo Quiz
Please consider the following arrangement of the same word in quotation marks below that really does make up a well-formed sentence in the English language that follows the rules of grammar.
How can "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" be a real grammatically correct sentence? At its core what does the sentence say?
Did Hillary lie to a buffalo when in Buffalo?
ReplyDeleteDoug - Yesterday I told you that it was a proper sentence and what follows is what I get for the meaning of the sentence.
ReplyDeleteThe buffalo from Buffalo, who are buffaloed by buffalo from Buffalo buffalo other buffalo from Buffalo.
Excellent work PB. You hit the nail on the head exactly. So far no other correct answers. Great job.
DeleteSorry..cant figure this one out
ReplyDeleteWill send you the answer in a few days. First a hint – put the word “that” after one of the 8 buffaloes & add a comma in just the right place & that should help you see what the eight buffalos in a row says. You do not need “that” or the comma to make it a sentence – but it helps people understand it. Or @ least it helped me.
Deletenot sure I can do a sentence using the buffalo noun six times, nothing registers, but a simple sentence:
ReplyDeletethe buffalo is running over the cliff.
At its core, the sentence says Some Buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
ReplyDeleteBuffalo buffalo (Buffalo buffalo buffalo) buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
adj noun ( adj noun verb) verb adj noun
(a dependent adj
clause telling which
buffalo)
To clarify my response which came through scrambled -
DeleteAt its core, the sentence says Some Buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
I want to declare the parts of speech in the sentence which came through in the blog response scrambled:
Buffalo(adj) buffalo(noun) Buffalo buffalo buffalo(three words that are a dependent adj clause telling which buffalo) buffalo(verb) Buffalo(adj) buffalo(noun).
Cynthia Mascone’s answer:
ReplyDeleteHow can “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo” be a grammatically correct sentence? Let’s break it down.
As a noun, “buffalo” refers to animals; as a verb, it means “bully;” capitalized, “Buffalo” is a city in New York and is used here as an adjective to tell us where the animals are from. Another quirk is that “buffalo” is both singular and plural. In addition English is peculiar in that you can omit relative pronouns, e.g., “the person whom I love” can be expressed as “the person I love.”
At its core, the sentence says that buffalo bully buffalo:
Buffalo buffalo [that] Buffalo buffalo buffalo [i.e., bully] buffalo [i.e., bully] Buffalo buffalo.
or:
buffalo (from Buffalo) [that are] bullied by (other) buffalo (from Buffalo) bully (yet other) buffalo (from Buffalo).