Buffalo!

My new favorite sentence in the English language:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

It's a grammatically correct sentence that utilizes three different meanings of the word "buffalo": one as an adjective, one as a noun, and one as a verb. Pay close attention to the capitalization!

It sort of makes you appreciate the difficulty of learning English (or any language, for that matter).

Hence, the fanatical devotion of fans of Crazy English, maybe? From the New Yorker article about Li Yang's shouting-as-learning program:

Li's cosmology ties the ability to speak English to personal strength, and personal strength to national power. It's a combination that produces intense, sometimes desperate adoration. A student named Feng Tao told me that on one occasion, realizing that he had enough cash for tuition to an out-of-town Li lecture but not enough for train fare, "I went and sold blood."

Comments

[Harold]

As an editor, and someone from Buffalo, I have to take issue with that sentence. It's grammatically correct, but it's not very clear. Also, everyone knows that Tonawanda buffalo can kick the living crap out of Buffalo buffalo, so it's not much use worrying about the chicken-wing-eating buffalo who lives up the street.

[C.J.]

The URI::Fetch test are failing, Ben...

Test Summary Report
-------------------
t/01-fetch.t (Wstat: 768 Tests: 76 Failed: 3)
Failed tests: 13-15
Non-zero exit status: 3
Files=3, Tests=88, 7 wallclock secs ( 0.05 usr 0.01 sys + 0.84 cusr 0.13 csys = 1.03 CPU)
Result: FAIL
Failed 1/3 test programs. 3/88 subtests failed.
make: *** [test_dynamic] Error 255
BTROTT/URI-Fetch-0.08.tar.gz
/usr/bin/make test -- NOT OK
//hint// to see the cpan-testers results for installing this module, try:
reports BTROTT/URI-Fetch-0.08.tar.gz
Running make install
make test had returned bad status, won't install without force
Failed during this command:
BTROTT/URI-Fetch-0.08.tar.gz : make_test NO

[C.J.]

It looks like you cover most use cases, though. Woe for me and CentOS5, though.

Cheers,

C.J.

$ uname -a
Linux cjac 2.6.18-53.1.14.el5 #1 SMP Wed Mar 5 11:36:49 EST 2008 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

$ perl -v

This is perl, v5.8.8 built for i386-linux-thread-multi

$ cat /etc/redhat-release
CentOS release 5 (Final)

*+PASS 5.8.8 on Linux 2.6.9-34.elsmp (i386-linux-thread-multi)
*-FAIL 5.8.8 on Linux 2.6.9-34.elsmp (i386-linux-thread-multi)
*-FAIL 5.8.8 on Linux 2.6.9-34.elsmp (i386-linux-thread-multi)
*-FAIL 5.8.8 on Linux 2.6.9-34.elsmp (i386-linux-thread-multi)
*-FAIL 5.8.8 on Linux 2.6.9-34.elsmp (i386-linux-thread-multi)
*-FAIL 5.8.8 on Linux 2.6.9-34.elsmp (i386-linux-thread-multi)