Funny T-Shirts

To Jim O'Connell, here are two to ask your Japanese friends about:

Sumomo mo momo mo momo no uchi desu.

Niwa niwa niwa ni niwa tori ga imasu.

I think I remembered them correctly.

Actually, punctuation would be inappropriate in most of the example sentences...there's a huge difference between the sentences 'Men who like beer like women' and 'Men, who like beer, like women'. You could cheat with 'Men who like beer, like women', but that sentence instantly becomes somewhat ambiguous.

Ten occurrences are indeed easy enough to legally get away with.

You have buffalo being used as an adjective, noun, adverb, and verb, more or less.

The final sentence effectively means (adding connecting words and changing the plural form for an attempt at clarity):

Buffaloes from Buffalo which are buffaloed in the Buffalo style by other buffaloes from Buffalo, in turn buffalo in the Buffalo style other buffaloes from Buffalo."

or: Buffalo buffalo (that) Bufallo buffalo Buffalo-buffalo, (in turn) Buffalo-buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Hence: Buffalo buffalo Bufallo buffalo Buffalo buffalo, Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

You could cheat with 'Men who like beer, like women', but that sentence instantly becomes somewhat ambiguous.

I vehemently disagree. I feel that that sentense with that punctuation becomes easier to parse without becomin more ambiguous at all. Unless you can point out where the ambiguity lies? To me, the comma after 'beer' signifies the omission of the word 'also' - the addition of which would make parsing far easier.

However, to complain about these being 'incorrect sentences' is to miss the point: most are puzzles rather than accurate sentences in their own right. All of those sentences could be re-written so as to be easier to parse, while any sentence that is so obtuse is a 'bad' sentence in that it fails to communicate its meaning (which is not to deny ambiguity its place, of course).

IANAL(inguist), but I believe such puzzles are usually used pedagogically, as tests of one's ability to parse writing and to use punctuation well in order to enhance readability. The latter is something remarkably few do: a surprising number of people fail to grasp that punctuation is primarily functional, its purpose to convey the speech cadences that would make a sentence like 'Dogs dogs dog dog dogs' comprehensible.

Of course, such sentences are only of use as puzzles, jokes, or exercises - readability would best be enhanced by changes in vocabulary and/or major restructuring of the sentences.

Jim O'Connell,

These are known as "garden path" sentences, and some people treasure them.

The classic is, "the horse raced past the barn fell."

This is a simple one of mine:

"The man eating shark dropped his fork."

11 buffalo occurences:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo.

(The buffalo from Buffalo, who are buffalo'ed by buffalo from Buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo that other buffalo from Buffalo buffalo.)

This reminds me of line from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang which went something like: "Picture this bullet in your head."

I vehemently disagree. I feel that that sentense with that punctuation becomes easier to parse without becomin more ambiguous at all. Unless you can point out where the ambiguity lies? To me, the comma after 'beer' signifies the omission of the word 'also' - the addition of which would make parsing far easier.

Unfortunately, commas aren't used simply to make parsing easier...they're supposed to set off separate elements in a sentence. In the sentence 'Men who like beer like women', the suject is the consituent 'men who like beer'. This is what separates it from the sentence 'Men, who like beer, like women'. They are not semantically equivalent. One is saying that "there are men who like beer, and those men like women". The other is saying "men like beer, and men also like women".

A better way of demonstrating why a comma is inappropriate would be a sentence like "The person I like, is Tom." or "The movie we're going to, will be Snakes on a Plane." Surely you wouldn't argue for the comma in those two sentences? Structurally, they're (essentially) identical to 'Dogs dogs dog dog dogs'.

Go on then, Pixie, explain the Japanese ones. (I'm learning Japanese, and they look interesting). I thought I was a bit of a master of language, but i'm kind of lost on the more complicated ones here... Must try to come up with an example in French or Spanish...

Cats mice dog dog mice cats dog, cats catch catched cats catched cats catch. Mice cats dog dig digged digs catched cats and dogged dogs dig. Digged digs dig digged digs digged digs dig. Dig?

"Digs" can be a noun, "check out the new digs" as in a freshly built house.

Tom K: The first one is:

Both plums (sumomo) and peaches (momo) are varieties of the peach family (momo no uchi desu). "Both" being indicated by the markers "mo" after the nouns.

The second one I heard but never really understood word for word. The gist of it is that there are two birds in the garden. The first "niwa" is the garden and the second the preposition, I believe.

Fish fishy fished fish fish fish fished fishy fish fish.