The Czech ambiguity one with 5 words giving 7+ sentence meanings (raising to 58 possible meanings when allowing same syllables but a single word merge) is mind boggling.
I also quite like this punctuation-based one:
Dear John:
I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy–will you let me be yours?
Jane
vs
Dear John,
I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?
Yours,
Jane
These examples provide a nice illustration how human language evolution optimizes for most common use cases and basically ignores the worst case scenarios.
Quite a bit different from formal languages where even rare worst cases get a lot of attention (or rather they are designed in a way to avoid worst case scenarios at the cost of making the typical scenarios less efficient).
DEAR JOHN I WANT A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT LOVE IS ALL ABOUT YOU ARE GENEROUS KIND THOUGHTFUL PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT LIKE YOU ADMIT TO BEING USELESS AND INFERIOR YOU HAVE RUINED ME FOR OTHER MEN I YEARN FOR YOU I HAVE NO FEELINGS WHATSOEVER WHEN WERE APART I CAN BE FOREVER HAPPY WILL YOU LET ME BE YOURS JANE
I think the simplest repeating word sentence is using "police". It isn't as impressive since it only employs two meanings rather than three but is much easier to grasp.
Who polices police? Police police.
Police police police police.
But then who polices police police? Police police police.
Police police police police police police.
"Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign' have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?"
- Martin Gardner
The passage "Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign' have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?" would sprawl across the page if newlines were placed between the and words, and words and Fish, and Fish and and, and and and between, and between and Fish, and Fish and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips.
"James had had had had John had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher"
With added commas, to aid parsing:
"James had had had had, John had had had - had had had had a better effect on the teacher."
The context being a hypothetical sentence in which either "had" or "had had" were valid constructions. "Had had" was the formulation which the teacher liked best.
It really boggles the brain to see that many repetitions, but I find it easier to parse/explain than the Buffalo one.
James, while John had had "had had" had had "had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had". "had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had" had had a worse effect on John's computer program because the string buffer wasn't large enough.
In the context of two users putting inputs into a C program that doesn't sanitize user input.
Two strings walk into a bar and sit down. The bartender says, “So what’ll it be?”
The first string says, “I think I’ll have a beer quag fulk boorg jdk^CjfdLk jk3s d#f67howe%^U r89nvy~~owmc63^Dz x.xvcu”
“Please excuse my friend,” the second string says, “He isn’t null-terminated.”
You're right - mine was from memory, but this is closer to the original formulation - it's supposed to have been "James while John had had had had ... "
> Thomas Tymoczko has pointed out that there is nothing special about eight "buffalos";[2] any sentence consisting solely of the word "buffalo" repeated any number of times is grammatically correct.
My favorite part of this. Repeated 10 times, for instance, could mean "NY bison NY bison bully bully bison NY bison bully." (The New York bison who are bullied by other NY bison, well they themselves bully some bison whom other NY bison bully.) Any number of times unfurls out of, like, kind of a context-free grammar replacement scheme from a base case:
"bully bison" -> base case
"* bison *" -> "* bison bison bully *"
"* bison *" -> "* NY bison *"
"Kuusi palaa" has at least six different meanings: 1) your moon is burning, 2) pruce tree is burning, 3) number six is burning, 4) a part of something is burning, 5) pruce tree returns, and 6) your moon returns.
"Kokoa kokoon koko kokko!"
"Koko kokko kokoonko?"
"Koko kokko kokoon!"
Which translates to a conversation between two parties on the building of a bonfire.
It's worth noting that pitch accent matters: LHHLHLLHHHHLH (L: low, H: high, for each mora). It becomes even more important if you remove one set of "niwa", because then you can have two different meanings:
"there are two birds in the garden" (depending on the pitch accent, the order of the words can be different)
Readit News
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguistic_example_sen...
The non-english examples section is fun too!
The Czech ambiguity one with 5 words giving 7+ sentence meanings (raising to 58 possible meanings when allowing same syllables but a single word merge) is mind boggling.
I also quite like this punctuation-based one:
vsQuite a bit different from formal languages where even rare worst cases get a lot of attention (or rather they are designed in a way to avoid worst case scenarios at the cost of making the typical scenarios less efficient).
ἥξεις ἀφήξεις, οὐκ ἐν πολέμῳ θνήξεις You go you will return, not die in the war.
ἥξεις ἀφήξεις οὐκ, ἐν πολέμῳ θνήξεις You go you will return not, die in the war.
שלמה שלמה שלמה שלמה שלמה
(or maybe it doesn't count because it's based on missing punctuation)
Who polices police? Police police. Police police police police.
But then who polices police police? Police police police. Police police police police police police.
Repeat ad infinitum. n-Police police (n-1)-police
The police police from Police Poland police the police from Police Poland: Police police police police Police police
"Buffalo bison that other Buffalo bison bully also bully Buffalo bison."
And from my other comment:
"Mighty bells hearty maidens ring vibrate nearby chairs."
My favorite simple one: "Unlike whiskey, you can't water water down."
My favorite long one: "I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign"
https://5tephen.com/loopdeloops/
my minute newt
my migrating grating
The first one is minute as in very small.
The second one the grating referred to a noun (as in diffraction grating), not a verb.
"James had had had had John had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher"
With added commas, to aid parsing:
"James had had had had, John had had had - had had had had a better effect on the teacher."
The context being a hypothetical sentence in which either "had" or "had had" were valid constructions. "Had had" was the formulation which the teacher liked best.
It really boggles the brain to see that many repetitions, but I find it easier to parse/explain than the Buffalo one.
In the context of two users putting inputs into a C program that doesn't sanitize user input.
“Please excuse my friend,” the second string says, “He isn’t null-terminated.”
> John, whereas James had had "had", had had "had "had"...
and you can get them all together...
My favorite part of this. Repeated 10 times, for instance, could mean "NY bison NY bison bully bully bison NY bison bully." (The New York bison who are bullied by other NY bison, well they themselves bully some bison whom other NY bison bully.) Any number of times unfurls out of, like, kind of a context-free grammar replacement scheme from a base case:
"Kuusi palaa" has at least six different meanings: 1) your moon is burning, 2) pruce tree is burning, 3) number six is burning, 4) a part of something is burning, 5) pruce tree returns, and 6) your moon returns.
"Kokoa kokoon koko kokko!" "Koko kokko kokoonko?" "Koko kokko kokoon!"
Which translates to a conversation between two parties on the building of a bonfire.
"There are two chickens in the garden"
"there are two birds in the garden" (depending on the pitch accent, the order of the words can be different)
"there is a chicken in the garden"