Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo
buffalo." is a grammatically correct sentence used as an example
of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated
constructs. It has been discussed in literature since 1972 when
the sentence was used by William J. Rapaport, an associate
professor at the University at Buffalo. It was posted to
Linguist List by Rapaport in 1992. It was also featured in
Steven Pinker's 1994 book The Language Instinct. The sentence is
unpunctuated and uses three different readings of the word
"buffalo". In order of their first use, these are - a. the city
of Buffalo, New York (or any other place named "Buffalo"), which
is used as an adjective in the sentence and is followed by the
animal; - n. the noun buffalo, an animal, in the plural
(equivalent to "buffaloes" or "buffalos"), in order to avoid
articles; - v. the verb "buffalo" meaning to bully, confuse,
deceive, or intimidate. Marking each "buffalo" with its use as
shown above gives - Buffaloa buffalon Buff