水牛的困惑 Bafflement over buffalo

Warning: English learners in China may want to skip this column, which may damage brain cells.

警告：中国的英语学习者可能不想看这篇会摧毁脑细胞的专栏。

OK, I see that you have continued to read. Don't say you weren't warned.

好吧，既然你选择继续看下去，可别怪我没提醒你哦。

Try to follow, if you can, this perfectly grammatical English sentence:

试着念一下这段语法完美的句子：

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

It is often presented as an example in English of how homonyms and homophones can be used in complex linguistic constructions, using lexical ambiguity—which is the long way of saying that this will really mess with your mind.

这句话经常被用作展示英语谐音、同音字在复杂结构中的用法。这里就不赘述词法多义性了，避免让你脑仁疼。

Not long ago, my son in the United States sent me a WeChat message containing a potent language puzzler. Naturally, I understood that he was seeking my advice. I am, after all, my family's senior English oracle and oak tree of wisdom. （My son now claims that he hadn't been seeking expert advice at all, since he already knew the answer, and he rather rudely, I thought, proved it by trotting out our chat. But here I claim a father's right to creative memory. Being an oracle in my own mind is better than aitting I didn't know what I was talking about.）

不久前，我儿子给我发了这个语言类测试。我很自然地认为他是来问我的建议，毕竟我是家里的智者。（我儿子说他早就知道答案了，所以压根没打算征求专家的意见。我觉得他粗鲁的炫耀证明了这一点。但是作为父亲，我要维护创造性记忆的权利。自认为是一个专家强过承认不知道自己在说什么。）

Yet, this was also an opportunity to burnish my grammatical gravitas. I wanted a witness to my riddle resolution, thereby reinforcing my English chops.

这也是一个端正我对语法态度的机会。我想找一个人见证我的解决方法，磨炼语言技巧。

At first I was dismissive: Of course, this is not grammatical, I told him. It's just some linguistic lunkhead on the internet sowing semantic discord.

首先我是拒绝回答的：我告诉儿子，这明显不合语法，而是网上的人瞎扯。

Truth be told, I had no idea whether the buffalo line was grammatical or not, but I didn't want to lose the illusion of being the expert. Thus I affected an authoritative air.

实际上，我根本不知道这句话是不是符合语法，我只是不想显得自己无知。

Then worry set in. I didn't want to be wrong. So I spent the next hour stewing over the buffalo line, studying the words, mulling, meditating, musing and mentally meandering—ruminating and racking my brain. I tried my best to make sense of it. （I could have saved time by looking up the answer online, but I have my pride.）

然后我就开始着急了，因为我不想出错。我花了一小时研究这句话，反复思考，尽最大努力理解。（其实我可以上网查答案，但我很傲娇的。）

And suddenly the light went on.

突然，灵感来了。

Inserting the word 'that' after the second occurrence of 'buffalo' did the trick. The smaze of ambiguity dissipated. Clarity dawned in all its lucid, logical majesty.

在第二个buffalo后面加上that这个词，整句话的意思就通了。拨云见日，一切都清楚了。

If you are still with me after all that, I shall share the answer now. The eight buffalo do indeed form a grammatical English sentence. Here's how it works:

如果你能看到现在，那我就揭晓答案。这八个buffalo确实组成了语法正确的句子。

Buffalo, with a capital 'B', is a city in New York. So the first two occurrences of the word refer to a group of buffalo （the animals） that live in Buffalo （the city）.

首字母大写的Buffalo指的是纽约州的水牛城。所以前两个Buffalo指的是住在水牛城的一群水牛。

So far, so good.

目前为止一切顺利。

Next, you need to know that 'buffalo' is not an animal only but also a verb, meaning 'to bully or intimidate'. Here is where it's useful to insert 'that' after the second buffalo. （It's often omitted in English in this situation.）

接下来，你需要知道buffalo不仅是动物名字，还能做动词，意思是“欺负”。所以在第二个buffalo后面加that就说得通了。（英文语境下经常省略that）。

Now we know that some buffalo that live in Buffalo are buffaloing （bullying or intimidating） some other buffalo from Buffalo.

现在我们知道了，一群住在水牛城的水牛，在欺负另一群住在那里的水牛。

And now for the grand finale, the climax of this insidious Gordian knot of meaning: All the aforementioned buffalo—taken together as a group—are buffaloing （bullying or intimidating） other buffalo from Buffalo.

总结一下，水牛城里，一群水牛在欺负另一群水牛。

Upon solving the riddle, I grew faint, but also jubilant. Jubilantly faint. And I knew I had to call my son back and ait humbly that I had attempted to buffalo him by claiming the sentence was ungrammatical. He had known the answer at the start but was polite enough not to rub it in, which I consider an act of filial piety.

我搞清楚这话的意思时，痛并快乐着。我得给我儿子打电话，告诉他我曾经试图欺负他，说这句话不符合语法。

For my part, by aitting error while at the same time providing the correct answer, I preserved my self-anointed honor as English language oracle. I went to bed feeling self-righteously smug. My son just rolled his eyes.

我在承认错误的同时，还获得了正确答案，维持了（自封的）语言专家的骄傲。我沾沾自喜地睡觉去了，让我儿子翻白眼去吧。

At least now you should have no problem understanding the following grammatical English sentence: Dogs dogs dog dog dogs.

你现在应该能理解这句话的意思了吧：

Dogs dogs dog dog dogs.