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29 pointsrsp198419 comments

I was just trying to explain this to my niece last week. She responded along the lines of how messy the English language is, but my counter argument was that it highlights the flexibility of language, which allows its use to be artistic as well as functional to a degree that's entirely at the discretion of the speaker / writer.

The best I can do is "The space between Fish and And and And and Chips is too small on that sign"

Martin Gardner came up with a somewhat contrived but still brilliant extension to this:

"Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign' have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguistic_example_sen...

This is fantastic, thank you.

Similar tongue twister in Finnish:

    - Kokko, kokoo kokko!
    - Koko kokkoko?
    - Koko kokko!

Meaning (Kokko is a male name but also means 'bonfire'):

    - Kokko, gather up a bonfire!
    - You mean the whole bonfire?
    - The whole bonfire!

This one is pretty fun:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ono_no_Takamura#Takamura_in_la...

"子子子子子子子子子子子子" --> "the young of cat (猫, neko), kitten (子猫, koneko), and the young of lion (獅子, shishi), cub (子獅子, kojishi)."

See also garden-path sentences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence

"The old man the boat."

"The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families."

"The horse raced past the barn fell."

"The horse raced past the barn fell" is embedded just one level deep. Besides it becoming completely unintelligible, there's nothing to say that you can't nest arbitrarily:

    The dog the cat the mouse liked hated barked.

Of course, language isn't prescriptive, so it's arguable if this is allowed. It's grammatical, in a technical sense, but not acceptable to, I'd imagine, most English speakers.

Barely related but I love it: “it was warm” in Japanese can be said ‘atatakakatta’.

With the kanji gives it context within the language, 暖かかった, but written in rōmaji it’s hard to know what’s what.

I also enjoy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence

Yorkshire (England) dialect.

"It is not in the tin."

"T'in't in tin"

- Jimmy Carr

WILL WILL SMITH SMITH? YES, WILL SMITH, WILL SMITH.

enjoy the uppercase!

Odd, I never noticed capitalization making things clearer, but it helps.

Will Will Smith smith? Yes, Will Smith, will smith.

it doesn't and that makes it even funnier

Sure it does, while not unambiguous both of these for example are valid.

  Will Will Smith smith? Yes, Will Smith, will smith.
  Will Will smith Smith? Yes, Will Smith, will smith.

JAMES WHILE JOHN HAD HAD HAD HAD HAD HAD HAD HAD HAD HAD HAD A BETTER EFFECT ON THE TEACHER.

Hm ... No panacea.

What if Will Smith won't smith? Well, if Will Smith won't smith then we'll find another smith that will smith what Will Smith won't.

A similar example from Doric Scots: "Fit fit fits fit fit"

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