Photo: C.W. Mathers, from the NYPL Digital Gallery
“Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo” is a grammatically correct sentence.
It is formed using the three meanings of the word buffalo:
- Buffalo: a city in New York State
- buffalo: the animal sometimes known as a bison
- buffalo: the verb, meaning to bully, confuse, or intimidate
There’s an explanation for the sentence over at its Wikipedia entry as well as over at Mental Floss. [via]
buffalo and bison are different.
buffalo only refers to the water buffalo and african buffalo. there have never been buffalo in the americas. american has the bison. so instead of referring to the buffalo as an animal sometimes referred to as a bison, it should be, the animal in the same family as the bison.
i sound like a smart ass but i’m not trying to be.