Buffaloed by Buffalo

 Adapted from my original post on Google+, back when we were allowed to have nice things.

WARNING: English ahead.

One of the difficult things about learning a language is understanding that a word may have several different meanings. Sometimes those meanings are so different that they have absolutely nothing to do with each other. And sometimes they're even different parts of speech.

Consider the word buffalo:

buffalo: (n) an ox-like mammal; bison
buffalo: (v) to confuse or intimidate
Buffalo: (n) a port city in New York

OK, three different meanings and two parts of speech. How bad could that possibly be? I'm glad you asked!

Image courtesy Wikipedia

Buffalo are large, imposing creatures, and they're not known for being especially bright. Up close, they're rather intimidating, and it's reasonable to assume they're easily confused. In other words, it's easy to buffalo them. That's right: you can buffalo buffalo. In fact, even though New Yorkers are among the best-educated people in their state, the same is sadly not true of their livestock, including the ones in northern New York State. So if you have nothing better to do, you can confuse bison from the city of Buffalo, NY: you can buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

With me so far? Great! Hang on, 'cause there's more.

These animals travel in herds, but they don't seem to have much empathy for each other, or for anything at all, for that matter. They're basically huge, stupid, hunks of meat. You could say they're beef-witted. It's not at all a stretch of the imagination to think that many, if not most, of their interactions are confusing to them. It wouldn't take much for one buffalo to confuse another, would it? And if the buffalo from Buffalo confuse other members of their herd, well, then Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo, don't they?

Here, let me color-code that for you: Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. The Buffalo buffalo are animals from the city, and buffalo is the verb. Better? Nobody ever said English was easy. Stick with me; it gets better. Or worse.

So far, we've established that bison from Buffalo can fool other bison from Buffalo. Let's think about that for a moment: if you were fooled by a bison, how would you feel? Angry? Taken advantage of? Might you be upset enough to want to fool other bison? (I have no idea whether bison are actually spiteful or vengeful; but it's critical to the storyline, so let's just go with it, OK?) If you were hell-bent on fooling other bison, which ones would you choose? Well, you'd choose the ones that had already been fooled, right, because they're the gullible ones. Which ones are they? They're the Buffalo buffalo that other Buffalo buffalo buffalo, aren't they: the Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo. Great. So let's suppose these angry, gullible, spiteful slabs of steak set out to fool others who are just like them. In other words:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo.¹

And this is why I'm so grateful that English is my first language.  I'd never be able to learn it as a second one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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*I'll take pity and make it a little easier. Again, buffalo is the verb:

Buffalo buffalo that Buffalo buffalo buffalo will also buffalo Buffalo buffalo that Buffalo buffalo buffalo.