What are some examples of awkward sounding but grammatically correct sentences?

Question

For grammarians who don't want to strand prepositions, shouldn't the best sentence construction be: "About whom is this story?" :)
I haven't had this much fun with English since I don't know when. Thank you!

Doug · Answer 1 · 2010-09-03 14:12:08Z

up vote 50 down vote accepted

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

answered Sep 3 '10 at 14:12

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Doug

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That is truly a bizarre sentence. – JohnFx Sep 3 '10 at 15:03

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It means "blue text means it's a link you should click on" – Seamus Sep 7 '10 at 14:01

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Rather: Bison from the city of Buffalo which are intimidated by other bison from the city of Buffalo themselves intimidate other bison from the city of Buffalo. – Doug Oct 15 '10 at 16:49

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@Seamus I see red text – Midhat Nov 28 '10 at 7:28

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@Midhat - I think that means you are in the matrix – mgb Mar 29 '11 at 23:02

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Andrew · Answer 2 · 2010-09-08 20:14:30Z

up vote 26 down vote

That that exists exists in that that that that exists exists in.

answered Sep 8 '10 at 20:14

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Andrew

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Nice — unlike the had-had sentence, this doesn't require any additional punctuation! – ShreevatsaR Sep 9 '10 at 7:37

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I can't wrap my head around this one – eventualEntropy Sep 9 '10 at 13:20

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Brackets may help: (That that exists) exists in (that that (that that exists) exists in). [Or rewriting it, letting X stand for "that that exists": X exists in that that X exists in. X exists in whatever X exists in. X exists where it does.] – ShreevatsaR Sep 10 '10 at 11:41

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@ShreevatsaR: LISP-like English ftw! – R. Martinho Fernandes Oct 13 '10 at 9:14

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Bruno Rothgiesser · Answer 3 · 2010-09-07 15:28:58Z

up vote 15 down vote

James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher.

answered Sep 7 '10 at 15:28

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Bruno Rothgiesser

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If you accept Had as a boy’s name... “In the English test, while Alice had had ‘had had’, Had had had ‘had’; had Had had ‘had had’, Had would have been correct. – Timwi Sep 9 '10 at 1:26

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Robusto · Answer 4 · 2010-11-24 14:12:43Z

As far as awkward-sounding is concerned, I submit there are few sentences spoken in English that sound more awkward than:

Ed had edited it.

This is very hard to say in the rapid flow of conversation, and results in a sound something like:

Edədedədədit.

Try it for yourself, speaking quickly, and you'll see what I mean.

A friend showed me a similar one, "Jiggle it a little, it'll open."
This reminds me of a (slightly dirty) joke: How do you titillate an ocelot? Oscillate its tit a lot.

Seamus · Answer 5 · 2010-09-07 14:05:25Z

up vote 13 down vote

Jim opens a cafe selling fish and chips. He has a sign made. It arrives and it says "fishandchips". So he rings up the sign company and says:

You need to put more space between "fish" and "and" and "and" and "chips"

answered Sep 7 '10 at 14:05

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Seamus

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Or rather, he writes the company and says “You need to put more space between fish and and and and and chips” and they write back, saying “in your request, you need to put quotation marks between ‘fish’ and ‘and’ and ‘and’ and ‘and’ and ‘and’ and ‘and’ and ‘and’ and ‘and’ and ‘and’ and ‘and’ and ‘and’ and ‘chips’”. – nohat♦ Sep 7 '10 at 16:50

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And he writes back saying... oh never mind... – Seamus Sep 7 '10 at 17:19

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@nohat I didn't know that one, thanks! – Jürgen A. Erhard Jan 13 '11 at 23:56

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kajaco · Answer 6 · 2010-09-03 13:52:58Z

up vote 8 down vote

"Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which we will not put." --Winston Churchill

answered Sep 3 '10 at 13:52

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kajaco

If you're going to attribute it to Churchill, please get the quotation right. – moioci Sep 3 '10 at 22:42

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@moioci--If you're going to point out an error, please provide evidence that it's incorrect. I found this link: wsu.edu/~brians/errors/churchill.html – kajaco Sep 4 '10 at 14:16

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Even though the quotation is apocryphal, the version you quoted is listed under "so scrambled it comes out backward" — the usual story has Churchill complaining about pedants insisting on not ending sentences with a preposition (and deliberately and ironically over-applying their rule), while your version has Churchill recommending the rule himself. – ShreevatsaR Sep 9 '10 at 7:35

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Oh BTW, I don't think this counts as a grammatically correct sentence; it's not grammatical to split "put up" like that. – ShreevatsaR Sep 9 '10 at 7:36

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Charlie · Answer 7 · 2010-09-09 01:17:05Z

up vote 4 down vote

How about some semantic awkwardness?

"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" —Noam Chomsky

answered Sep 9 '10 at 1:17

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Charlie

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For grammatically correct meaningless sentences, I prefer Stephen Fry's sentence in his lovely "Language" sketch: "Hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers." – ShreevatsaR Sep 9 '10 at 7:42

There is also the famous nonsense paragraph about "no soap" here: jstor.org/discover/10.2307/… – Hexagon Tiling Mar 19 at 23:01

Also: "'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves..." (Jabberwocky) – Hexagon Tiling Mar 19 at 23:03

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grautur · Answer 8 · 2011-06-21 05:34:35Z

up vote 2 down vote

"The horse raced past the barn fell."

answered Jun 21 '11 at 5:34

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grautur

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psmears · Answer 9 · 2011-06-21 13:41:52Z

In

I found John in an unenviable position.

there are the syllables "an", "en", "in", "on", "un" (i.e. all of "aeiou") run together. This makes it a little tricky to say.

JohnFx · Answer 10 · 2010-09-03 15:03:16Z

up vote 1 down vote

"It is what it's"

answered Sep 3 '10 at 15:03

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JohnFx

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It's not grammatically correct to use a positive contraction at the end of a sentence. E.g. we don't say "Yes I'm" or "There he's". – delete Sep 3 '10 at 15:04

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@Neil : The link on the sentence already goes to that question. – JohnFx Sep 3 '10 at 21:28

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@Shinto - You have a citation for that assertion? Nohat came the closest to an explanation of why that would be incorrect, but I am still unconvinced. – JohnFx Sep 3 '10 at 21:32

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I'm a native speaker of English and actually majored in it for two years of college before switching to Comp Sci. At no time did I ever hear than my intuition made something a rule. I suppose by that standard anything I think is right is. So I decree this construct to be proper grammar. – JohnFx Sep 4 '10 at 3:06

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@JohnFx, please see my new answer to the question you link to here. It explains why this is in fact ungrammatical. – nohat♦ Sep 4 '10 at 19:09

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