Am I A Lexical Genius?
May 25, 2012The other day, I was involved in a heated discussion over the merits of the sentence ‘Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.’ For those of you familiar with antanaclasis, you will immediately recognize this as the most famous English antanaclasic phrase on the planet and you will also completely appreciate my enthusiasm for having created an even better antanaclasic phrase. For those of you unfamiliar with antanaclasis, well, buckle up and prepare for an awesome lexical ride.
Antanaclasis the trick of using a single term with different meanings multiple times in the same sentence. One of the most famous examples of antanaclasis is the remark attributed to Benjamin Franklin, ‘We must all hang together or most assuredly we will all hang separately.’
But the true peak of antanaclasis is the wholly antanaclasic phrase, using the same word to create a full, grammatically correct sentence. For this to happen, you need a word that can act as a noun, a verb, and an adjective. One of the earliest examples of a wholly antanaclasic phrase is the Latin expression ‘Malo malo malo malo‘ which, loosely translated, means ’I would rather be in an apple tree than be a bad boy in trouble.’
The famous Buffalo phrase was coined in the 1970s by the linguist William J. Rapaport and plays off the fact that there is a city named ‘Buffalo‘, there is the bison-like creature known as ‘buffalo’ with a plural that is also ‘buffalo’, and that ‘buffalo’ is an old American slang word for ‘bully’ or ‘intimidate’. This allows the following sentence to be grammatically correct:
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
Which, can be more easily understood with this context:
Buffalo buffalo who are buffaloed by Buffalo buffalo go on to buffalo other Buffalo buffalo.
Now, why do I suspect that I have a streak of lexical genius? Because when I presented the Buffalo sentence at a recent family luncheon I was hooted down because ‘buffalo’ as a synonym for ‘bully’ is so hopelessly outdated. After all, when was the last time you talked about ‘buffaloing’ somebody into going to a movie or giving you their iPod? This sent me scurrying to my office to dwell on the problem. And look what I came up with!
Police police Police police police police Police police.
This sentence plays on the fact that there is a city in Poland called Police and it evokes a police force where there are three tiers of police officers who work to ensure the other two tiers are free of corruption. With more context, the sentence reads:
Police police who are policed by Police police also police Police police.
So? Am I a genius? Or am I merely another Ernst Schmied. (Yup, he’s the second Westerner to climb Everest after the knighted and beloved Sir Edmund Hillary.) Time, of course, will tell, but until I am dissuaded of the notion that I am a lexical genius, I will raise a glass of rosé to myself and bask in my antanaclasic artistry.
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