Buffalo
Building the longest sentence in English using only one word.
“Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.” That eight-word sentence is grammatically correct English. It exploits three meanings of buffalo:
· Buffalo — the city in upstate New York (proper noun)
· buffalo — bison-like animals, plural noun
· buffalo — to bully or intimidate, verb
Because the structure is recursive — a noun phrase “Buffalo
buffalo” can be modified by a reduced relative clause that itself
contains another “Buffalo buffalo” — sentences of every length
n can be made grammatical. The form is sometimes credited
to William J. Rapaport (1972) and was popularised by Steven Pinker.
It is often cited as the longest English sentence using a single word.