{"id":781,"date":"2018-09-28T23:30:49","date_gmt":"2018-09-29T03:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aristotle2digital.blogwyrm.com\/?p=781"},"modified":"2018-09-01T14:44:02","modified_gmt":"2018-09-01T18:44:02","slug":"whimsical-ambiguity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aristotle2digital.blogwyrm.com\/?p=781","title":{"rendered":"Whimsical Ambiguity"},"content":{"rendered":"

An earlier post (Language and Thought<\/a>) reflected on the question as if language effects the way we think and if so by how much.\u00a0 The general conclusion is that the hypothesis that a native speaker can only think thoughts for which his mother tongue possesses a word (the so-called Sapir-Whorf thesis) is unsupported by either common sense or by empirical evidence.\u00a0 However, there are numerous examples of language shaping the habits and attitudes of its native speakers in interesting and, sometimes, surprising ways.\u00a0 Attitudes, being what they are, range over the entire gamut of human emotions and the emotional foci for this discussion will be humor and whimsey.<\/p>\n

Nothing seems to separate the lower animals from humans as much as the abstract sense of humor.\u00a0 While mankind shares a sense of pleasure and mirth with more primitive animals no other species exhibits humor in a spoken language littered with abstract concepts, double entendre, and shades of meaning.\u00a0 A man and a dog may both laugh at someone slipping on a banana peel but only the man will find a \u2018man bites dog\u2019 joke funny (although if he does he still qualify as human?).\u00a0 And if machines will ever get to the point where they can mimic man then they better learn to tell a good joke or, at least, laugh at one.<\/p>\n

Topping the list of mirthful, silly constructions, is the buffalo grammar.\u00a0 For those unfamiliar, a short summary is in order.\u00a0 The word buffalo can be used as a noun (i.e. the large herd animal also known as a bison), an adjective (as in the city of Buffalo), and as a verb (meaning to fool, puzzle, baffle of mystify).\u00a0 This flexibility allows English speakers to create all sorts of sentences consisting solely of that one word.<\/p>\n

Some examples will help to illustrate.\u00a0 (Note that a given sentence may have multiple meanings only one of which is used in the illustration.)<\/p>\n

1 word:<\/p>\n

Buffalo! \u2013 an exclamation or ejaculation meaning look there is a buffalo over yonder.<\/div>\n

2 words:<\/p>\n

Buffalo buffalo.\u00a0 \u2013 a sentence meaning that bison are animals that succeed in fooling others.<\/div>\n

3 words:<\/p>\n

Buffalo buffalo buffalo. \u2013 a sentence meaning that the trickster Bison hail from that fine city in western New York state.<\/div>\n

4 words:<\/p>\n

Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo. \u2013 a sentence meaning that those con-artist Bison from Buffalo perpetrate their nefarious schemes on other, unsuspecting large herd mammals coming from other regions of the country.<\/div>\n

5 words:<\/p>\n

Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo. \u2013 a sentence meaning that those nefarious western New York bisons, wanted nationwide for their fealoneous behavior, make victims of members of their own community \u2013 truly reprehensible undertaking.<\/div>\n

The following youtube video gives more background (although they use another definition for buffalo as a verb \u2013 to intimidate or bully).<\/p>\n