Left Behinds: Punctuation

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Punctuation

In this excessively long thread, an anonymous commenter discusses Emily Dickinson's odd punctuation. Ladies and gentlemen, punctuation is everything. (Said in a Kiki voice while tapping one's ring against the side of one's empty glass to demand a refill.)

Take, for example, the grammatically valid sentence:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Explained here. Thanks to Boris.

UPDATE: Katie Peterson takes exception to Anonymous's characterization of Emily Dickinson as "needing an editor."

5 Comments:

At 11:09 AM, Eustacia Vye said…

It was LB's own Emma B who first explained to me that the name of our fair hometown is actually a bastardization of the French for "beautiful river." Wikipedia casts doubt on this, but it still seems unclear just how many Buffalo buffalo buffaloed Buffalo buffalo before there was a Buffalo Zoo.
At 2:37 PM, Solomon Grundy said…

How many other words can be used as nouns, adjectives, and verbs without change? Is there a word for that?

And disregarding the arriviste Buffalo buffalo who buffaloed Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo, over in Eustacia's ancestral homeland County Cook, did Cook cooks cook cooks Cook cooks cook?
At 2:40 PM, Solomon Grundy said…

And did I just reach "the limitations of human ability to parse structure and meaning", as Wikipedia claims? Because I still feel human. And I need to be loved, just like everybody else does.
At 2:47 PM, Solomon Grundy said…

And isn't 'beautiful river' in French something like 'belle riviere'? Where did the '-falo' come from? The French for 'beautiful flow'? Is that etymologically related to my new antidepressant, Lufalex, from the French for 'heavy flow'? And is that what the kids call institutionalized misogyny?
At 2:48 PM, Solomon Grundy said…

Sorry I'm watching The Office as I type this.

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Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Punctuation

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