Iterations
Karin & I hosted a dinner party last night. The guests were Karin’s grandpa, Karin’s mom, and Brianna. We had to spray Jasper with water to keep him away from the food. Even shy little Ziva came out of hiding a few times, and we had to spray her, too.
We discussed the Vikings’ dramatic playoff victory, which, in solidarity with Karin’s stepdad, we all had witnessed. (Here are some rather lengthy highlights, as well as the game’s winning play and the same play from a field-level perspective.) Later in the evening, Karin’s mom told me that “buffalo” is a verb. To buffalo is to baffle. Researching this, I learned that grammatical sentences of n words can be formed simply by saying buffalo out loud n times, for any cardinal number n; and that the writing of such sentences requires minimal punctuating. Here are a few examples:
“Buffalo,” a command to do buffaloing.
“Buffalo buffalo,” a command to do buffaloing to buffaloes.
“Buffalo buffalo,” which states that buffaloes do buffaloing.
“Buffalo buffalo buffalo,” which states that buffaloes do buffaloing to buffaloes.
“Buffalo buffalo buffalo,” which states that Buffalo’s buffaloes do buffaloing.
“Buffalo Buffalo buffalo,” a command to do buffaloing to Buffalo’s buffaloes.
And so on.
I stayed out of bed until one o’clock forming longer and longer sentences from iterations of buffalo. Then I lay awake in bed until three o’clock. This morning, bleary-eyed, I went to my first regular tutoring shift of the new semester.
We discussed the Vikings’ dramatic playoff victory, which, in solidarity with Karin’s stepdad, we all had witnessed. (Here are some rather lengthy highlights, as well as the game’s winning play and the same play from a field-level perspective.) Later in the evening, Karin’s mom told me that “buffalo” is a verb. To buffalo is to baffle. Researching this, I learned that grammatical sentences of n words can be formed simply by saying buffalo out loud n times, for any cardinal number n; and that the writing of such sentences requires minimal punctuating. Here are a few examples:
“Buffalo,” a command to do buffaloing.
“Buffalo buffalo,” a command to do buffaloing to buffaloes.
“Buffalo buffalo,” which states that buffaloes do buffaloing.
“Buffalo buffalo buffalo,” which states that buffaloes do buffaloing to buffaloes.
“Buffalo buffalo buffalo,” which states that Buffalo’s buffaloes do buffaloing.
“Buffalo Buffalo buffalo,” a command to do buffaloing to Buffalo’s buffaloes.
And so on.
I stayed out of bed until one o’clock forming longer and longer sentences from iterations of buffalo. Then I lay awake in bed until three o’clock. This morning, bleary-eyed, I went to my first regular tutoring shift of the new semester.