Bitching about the documentation...

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 15:29:07 +0000, Grant Edwards wrote:

> On 2005-12-07, Steven D'Aprano <steve at REMOVETHIScyber.com.au> wrote:
>> On Mon, 05 Dec 2005 19:36:58 -0800, BartlebyScrivener wrote:
>>
>>> Well, that might be asking a bit too much of the programmers, who
>>> perhaps don't exactly enjoy mucking about in the lowlands of English
>>> grammar and syntax.
>>
>> Oh come on now! For the kinds of minds who enjoy obfuscated C or Perl,
>> English is just par for the course.
>>
>> One of my favourite examples of obfuscated English is this grammatically
>> correct sentence:
>>
>> "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."
> 
> Why the goofy-looking capitalization?  Are the 2nd and 3rd
> occurances of "Buffalo" referring to the city?

The punctuation is important. Yes, they refer to the city.

(Which reminds me of the old joke about capitalisation being the
difference between "I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse" and "I helped my
Uncle jack off a horse".)

For those who don't know, "buffalo" is also a verb meaning to overwhelm
or intimidate.



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"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

Buffalo from the city of Buffalo, which are intimidated by buffalo
from Buffalo, also intimidate buffalo from Buffalo.


I didn't say it was *good* English, but it is *legal* English.



-- 
Steven.