About Me

In writing the "About Me" portion of this blog I thought about the purpose of the blog - namely, preventing the growth of Socialism & stopping the Death Of Democracy in the American Republic & returning her to the "liberty to abundance" stage of our history. One word descriptions of people's philosophies or purposes are quite often inadequate. I feel that I am "liberal" meaning that I am broad minded, independent, generous, hospitable, & magnanimous. Under these terms "liberal" is a perfectly good word that has been corrupted over the years to mean the person is a left-winger or as Mark Levin more accurately wrote in his book "Liberty & Tyranny" a "statist" - someone looking for government or state control of society. I am certainly not that & have dedicated the blog to fighting this. I believe that I find what I am when I consider whether or not I am a "conservative" & specifically when I ask what is it that I am trying to conserve? It is the libertarian principles that America was founded upon & originally followed. That is the Return To Excellence that this blog is named for & is all about.

Sunday, May 6, 2018

Buffalo Quiz

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?
 
 

9 comments:

  1. Did Hillary lie to a buffalo when in Buffalo?

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  2. Doug - Yesterday I told you that it was a proper sentence and what follows is what I get for the meaning of the sentence.

    The buffalo from Buffalo, who are buffaloed by buffalo from Buffalo buffalo other buffalo from Buffalo.

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    1. Excellent work PB. You hit the nail on the head exactly. So far no other correct answers. Great job.

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  3. Sorry..cant figure this one out

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    1. Will 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.

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  4. not sure I can do a sentence using the buffalo noun six times, nothing registers, but a simple sentence:
    the buffalo is running over the cliff.

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  5. At its core, the sentence says Some Buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

    Buffalo buffalo (Buffalo buffalo buffalo) buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
    adj noun ( adj noun verb) verb adj noun
    (a dependent adj
    clause telling which
    buffalo)

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    1. To clarify my response which came through scrambled -

      At 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).

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  6. Cynthia Mascone’s answer:

    How 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).

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