Talk:List of linguistic example sentences/Archive 1

Ending in a prep
"Change we can believe in" ?

--Mainstreetmark (talk) 20:30, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Girls School?
IIRC, the Lojban published materials list the phrase "pretty little girls school" as an ambiguous one - but would it be an example of lexical or syntactic ambiguity? (I'd thing syntactic, but the article on the topic states outright that syntactic ambiguity is a sentence issue, not a phrasal one.) --Jay (Histrion) (talk • contribs) 19:41, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

It is clearly syntactically ambiguous. The other article is totally wrong. It's not even clear what "syntactic ambiguity is a sentence issue, not a phrasal one" could even mean. Ailun (talk) 19:11, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Syntactic ambiguity?
Isn't "we saw her duck" a case of lexical rather than syntactic ambiguity?91.98.205.87 (talk) 15:49, 13 January 2009 (UTC)


 * While someone below claims it is syntactic ambiguity, I'm inclined to agree with you: it is a change in the entire lexical item in question that results in the sentence being parsed in a syntactically different way. I might even prefer to describe it as semantic ambiguity- unlike a lexically ambiguous sentence like, "Nice rock."--66.229.200.194 (talk) 04:29, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Not Syntactically Ambiguous
"The criminal experienced a seizure." is not syntactically ambiguous. It's lexically ambiguous, based on two different sense of "seizure" which are still the same part of speech and still play the same role in the sentence.

"While the man was hunting the deer ran through the forest." is also wrong. This is a garden path sentence. It is not syntactically ambiguous because the alternate parse is ungrammatical.

"We saw her duck." is syntactic ambiguity. The two senses of duck are different parts of speech and require different parses. The first, in which "duck" is a noun, there is only one clause, but if "duck" is a verb then it's two.

"The girl the dog the boy hit bit cried." is an example of center embedding. Ailun (talk) 19:11, 6 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I added it to the article. — Loadmaster (talk) 01:07, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Fit fit fits fit ski?
Why is this listed under Glaswegian/Southwestern Scots? As a native of Southwest Scotland and frequent visitor to Glasgow, I don't believe I have ever heard the word "fit" used to mean "what" or "which" in these parts of the country. It's a Northern Scotticism one would expect to hear, for example, in Aberdeenshire. In Glasgow or Dumfriesshire we would say "whit" meaning "what" (Whit fit fits whit ski?). Contains Mild Peril (talk) 18:39, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

All sentences are linguistic examples
I'm not convinced that this page, as it appears currently, is either encyclopedic or notable. It certainly needs better sourcing. At the very least, editors should review WP:Stand-alone lists and ensure that this page meets criteria for explicitness and lack of ambiguity, and that the topic is appropriate for a list. Since every sentence is, by definition, an illustration of linguistic phenomena, under the current minimal criteria this list is potentially infinite. Cnilep (talk) 14:35, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Well said. But let's accept that certain examples gain an encyclopedic fame. (After all, "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" will sound familiar to many people.) And let's not begrudge people their recreational linguistics -- as long as it is real linguistics, not cod linguistics. I'd say that this is the kind of article that's intrinsically worthless but for which an AfD would be sure to fail, so we're stuck with it, or something worse or better.
 * I think the article is even worse than you suggest. Those of us who unfortunately don't read one or other of the languages for which examples are given have no reason even to think that the examples are possible or say what they are claimed to say: after all, only a minuscule percentage of the non-English examples are sourced. For all I know, most could be entirely fraudulent.
 * As for the English examples, some (significant or otherwise) are presented to demonstrate things that they don't demonstrate. I hope that I at least fixed the "Churchillian" canard. -- Hoary (talk) 01:36, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Cod, cod, etc
Why did someone remove this item. It is a valid example of this sort of sentence, and much more interesting than the rather silly Buffalo one.BevRowe (talk) 17:13, 12 December 2009 (UTC)BevRowe
 * What does it mean, and what does it illustrate? It's not really a "linguistic example sentence" unless it is a meaningful sentence and illustrates a linguistic phenomenon. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 22:59, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

If you removed it because you did not understand it, that is a form of vandalism. Unfortunately the explanation has also been removed, for equally poor reasons. Please leave it there for the moment, be assured that it at least as meaningful as the Buffalo nonsense, and let me try to get the explanation reinstated. I assure you this is a grammatically valid sentence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BevRowe (talk • contribs) 10:45, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I have now reinstated the explanation. Please read it. BevRowe (talk) 11:01, 13 December 2009 (UTC)BevRowe
 * Even if this were serious, it is original research and something you made up. Knock it off. --Glenfarclas (talk) 11:08, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Glen. After reading the page you wrote, it's obvious that this is just something you came up with. It's not a notable sentence, and even if it weren't something you made up it still doesn't demonstrate anything that the Buffalo sentence doesn't. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 15:57, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I haven't read the sentence in question. But I can hardly blame an editor for sticking in their own sentence. Just look above: in "Not Syntactically Ambiguous" Ailun appears to make up a sentence to exemplify (and does this well, I think); and immediately below that in All sentences are linguistic examples seems to agree with me that making up example sentences is a standard procedure in linguistics (or anyway that majority of linguistics that isn't rigidly corpus-based).

This "list" is a bizarre mixture of famous examples ("colorless green ideas", "Buffalo"&times;8), oft-repeated canards ("up with which I will not put"), sentences or non-sentences apparently written of the tops of editors' heads, humdrum sentences unmemorably mentioned by this or that writer on writing, and jolly tongue twisters that either come from around the world as is claimed or were just made up by bored nitwits during school breaks (as only one was sourced the last time I looked, I don't know). And it will remain a mess until rethought and retitled.

Perhaps a split into "List of notable sentences in linguistics" (note the "notable") and "List of tongue-twisters". -- 01:05, 30 December 2009 (UTC)~
 * I support moving to List of notable sentences in linguistics. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 01:14, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Too many examples?
Do we really need 12 examples of say, Lexical Ambiguity? Can't we limit ourselves to the most famous ones or something, or those which illustrate something interesting? -- kowey (talk) 10:00, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Every farmer who owns a donkey beats it
I'm not sure I understand what this example is meant to show. The article cited seems to claim that it cannot be expressed satisfactorily in first-order predicate language, but $$ \forall x \forall y((Fx \land Dy \land Oxy) \to Bxy) $$ seems to express the intended meaning (with Fx meaning "x is a farmer", Dx meaning "x is a donkey", Oxy meaning "x owns y", and Bxy meaning "x beats y"). It's possible that I've made a foolish error in the translation, or that I misunderstood the reason for including the sentence, but if not, it doesn't seem to be a particularly interesting sentence.69.239.253.34 (talk) 09:19, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I find this variant easier for me to understand: "Every boxer loves a woman", which could be translated as $$ \forall x (Bx \rightarrow \exists y(Wy \wedge Lxy)) $$ (more intuitive), or if you think about it $$ \exists y (Wy \wedge \forall x (Bx \rightarrow Lxy))$$ (imagine following up the sentence with "...and her name is Mia". This example comes from Representation and Inference for Natural Language, Blackburn and Bos -- kowey (talk) 09:57, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

It could mean that every farmer who owns a donkey leaves. --192.235.8.1 (talk) 16:11, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Translation error (going off of the previous comment by user 192.235.8.1): In American English "to beat it" is an idiomatic expression that means "to go away/leave".
 * The two most likely interpretations (in American English) are:


 * 1) "Every farmer, who owns a donkey, beats it (literally hits it/commits animal cruelty)"


 * 2) "Every farmer who owns a donkey 'beats it'= Every farmer who owns a donkey goes away/gets out of the business of donkey-ownership".


 * It is a very problematic example of ambiguity because it contains a very idiomatic American English phrase that can have multiple meanings in American English, but only one meaning in other English varieties. It is probably a good idea to have an explanation of the American English meaning(s) for "beat it".

Brianc26 (talk) 08:04, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Problems: Idiomaticity
One of the examples under syntactic ambiguity "every farmer who owns a donkey beats it" contains extremely idiomatic English. The sentence is only ambiguous to English speakers familiar with the idiomatic phrase "to beat it"="to leave/to go away". On the "every farmer who owns a donkey beats it" section, two users debated about its possible meanings, and neither found the actual ambiguity:

"I'm not sure I understand what this example is meant to show. The article cited seems to claim that it cannot be expressed satisfactorily in first-order predicate language, but seems to express the intended meaning (with Fx meaning "x is a farmer", Dx meaning 'x is a donkey", Oxy meaning "x owns y", and Bxy meaning "x beats y'). It's possible that I've made a foolish error in the translation, or that I misunderstood the reason for including the sentence, but if not, it doesn't seem to be a particularly interesting sentence."

"I find this variant easier for me to understand: 'Every boxer loves a woman', which could be translated as (more intuitive), or if you think about it (imagine following up the sentence with "...and her name is Mia". This example comes from Representation and Inference for Natural Language, Blackburn and Bos"


 * Because the phrase "to beat it" meaning "to go away" does not seem to be a part of some English speaker's (even native speaker's) active vocabulary, an explanation has been added to the articleBrianc26 (talk) 08:34, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

"Hole found in changing room wall; police are looking into it."
The above sentence is listed under "Syntactical ambiguity". I think the ambiguity is more semantic than syntactic. "Police are looking into it" can be interpreted in the usual way, or in the more literal way invited by the context; but the parse tree is the same. I'm going to remove it. If you're in disagreement, please say so. Genialimbecile (talk) 16:22, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Compound use
The unwanted book was a book of stories about Australia. "What did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of about Down Under up for?" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.61.4.237 (talk) 02:59, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

"Police help dog bite victim" removal
Right; "police help dog bite victim" doesn't make sense. Even if we split "police help dog" away from the phrase, the ending would either have to be "bites victim" or "bite victims". Could someone explain this and give themselves justification for retaining such an example on the article? Kevin Steinhardt (talk) 00:50, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The sentence has two readings:
 * Police help a [dog bite victim]
 * Police help (a) dog (to) bite (a) victim.
 * To understand it, you need to realize that the sentence is written in headlinese grammar. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 01:09, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * As far as the 1st reading goes, it would be more accurate to use the hyphenated compound modifier "dog-bite victim", but that would negate the deliberate ploy by the editor to create an ambiguous headline - and thereby attract more readers - Ian 165.143.155.57 (talk) 09:41, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily. Hyphenation works differently in different varieties of English. I don't know your variety, but for me (General American), we would not say "a dog-bite"--we wouldn't use a hyphen in this sentence. 86.73.48.198 (talk) 11:28, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
 * We wouldn't write "a dog-bite" (noun), but we would write "a dog-bite victim" (adjective). 24.61.4.237 (talk) 03:01, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Ending in verbs

 * "The girl the dog the boy hit bit cried."

Or, rearranged:
 * "The girl ([that] (the dog [that] (the boy) hit) bit) cried."
 * "The girl (who was bitten by the dog (that was hit by the boy)) cried."

I'd like to add it to the article, but I don't see an obvious section in which it belongs. — Loadmaster (talk) 05:47, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Embedding? 98.25.113.100 (talk) 17:51, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Lack of punctuation in examples in lexical ambiguity
I don't think the point is to be lexically ambiguous on purpose by leaving out obvious punctuation at the end of sentences, or normal pauses/inflection one would make in their speech to clarify the sentences, so why do many of them have a convention-less version and then a grammatically correct one (which would be actually seen in writing, or to some extent spoken)? It seems like the examples' goals are to make you figure out the sentence first, on your own. atomic 77  32  19:50, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Where's that FIlipino one-syllable dialogue thingamagook?
I had seen a Filipino example of one-syllable dialogue one.

"Bababa ba?" "Bababa."

"Is [the elevator] going down?" "[Yes], going down."

Should such be included? Or would citations be needed first? --Dan2paul (talk) 13:47, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Fear the king not to kill is good
I was given this sentence once as an example of how comma placement (does it go before or after "not") can completely change the meaning of the command. But I've never been able to find this example mentioned elsewhere. Is anyone else familiar with it? Aristophanes 68  (talk)  03:44, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Search the article, Wikipedia, or the web, for "occidere nolite". There are several variants, one beginning in "Eduardum (Edwardum) occidere nolite" and one in "reginam occidere nolite". --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:50, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

11, 22
I throw this is for whoever wants to fit it in. Heard it decades ago. "11 was 1 racehorse, 22 was 12. 1111 race, 22112." The trick is to read the numbers individually, so the last line for example is "Two Two won one too". The last two lines can also be re-written as: "2211 race, 11112." The Yeti (talk) 00:16, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 1 one external link on List of linguistic example sentences. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Corrected formatting/usage for //psychology.uconn.edu/labs/solab/papers/tabor04eomlscosp.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 05:36, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Turning socks
You can't turn socks from inside out to outside in because inside out and outside in are the same state of sock. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.46.137.14 (talk) 14:52, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Martin Gardner's ambiguity
From the page: In a similar vein, Martin Gardner offered the example: 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?

Surely Martin Gardner is aware that his sentence would be clearer if quotation marks were 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 and, and and and And, and and and and, and and and And, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and And, and and and and, and and and And, and and 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. I assume his overlooking of this was deliberate in order to spur the reader to further extrapolate on the absurdity of omitting quotation marks. (This sentence, incidentally, has 86 identical words in a row.)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.255.192.65 (talk) 15:02, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The article contained (on August 11, 2018) this remark by an unknown person: This sentence is much easier to read because the writer placed commas between and and & and and and And, & and and and And & and And and and, & and And and and & and and and And, & and and and And & and And and and, & and And and and & and and and. (46 ands in a row). It's a nice sentiment, but it clearly an opinion, not a statement of fact, so it does not belong in the article and I have removed it (the Talk place is a good place for it to live). Personally, I think that the commas make little difference in a remark like this — both and and & and and and And, & and and and And & and And and and, & and And and and & and and and And, & and and and And & and And and and, & and And and and & and and and and and and & and and and And & and and and And & and And and and & and And and and & and and and And & and and and And & and And and and & and And and and & and and and are equally confusing. RoyLeban (talk) 00:25, 12 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I think the 46 and sentence needs to be fixed as it is using the ampersand symbol without ANY explanation, and is being used as both a comparator and a conjunction, which makes it inconsistent, ambiguous, and confusing without having to waste a lot of time marking up each sentence to decipher the reasoning behind the ampersands. In the following I changed the usage of & to be consistent such that & == conjunction and *and == comparator. Also inserted brackets for the sake of my own sanity that can be removed, since I do realize that these sentences are meant to be grammatically correct, but not exactly readable.
 * "This sentence is much easier to read because the writer placed commas between [and and] *and [and and and And], & [and and and And] *and [and And and and], & [and And and and] *and [and and and And], & [and and and And] *and [and And and and], & [and And and and] *and [and and and]. (46 ands in a row)."
 * 73.32.240.16 (talk) 16:00, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Some enterprising (anonymous?) person wrote a sentence with 46 ands and thinks its worthy of inclusion in the article because it's an example. My own thought was that the commas make little difference in a remark like this — both and and & and and and And, & and and and And & and And and and, & and And and and & and and and And, & and and and And & and And and and, & and And and and & and and and and and and & and and and And & and and and And & and And and and & and And and and & and and and And & and and and And & and And and and & and And and and & and and and are equally confusing.

So, hey, there's an example, with 93 ands, which crushes the 46 example. It should be in the article! But, wait, surely somebody will respond with 150+ and on and on and until we have a page with thousands of ands in it. Neither the 46-and example nor my 93-and example have been published anywhere. They're appropriate here on the Talk page but not in the article. RoyLeban (talk) 05:31, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

It is surely agreed that Martin said "I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips, but why are there two capitalized 'And's? Shouldn't it only be one And? Fish-and-and-chips? Can someone explain right below this? 202.185.199.196, 11:40 am(UTC), 3/9/2019

46 Ands
Just to clarify the last change. The sentence is not meant to be a personal opinion. It could state the opposite (it is NOT easier). It does not matter for the linguistic example. By analogy, the Martin Gardner example preceding it with 21 Ands is not a personal opinion; that placing quotation marks would make it "clearer". It is just a sentence providing 21 Ands. Indeed, the sentence could be made neutral (if that was needed) by stating for example: "The writer placed commas between and and & and and and And, & and and and And & and And and and, & and And and and & and and and And, & and and and And & and And and and, & and And and and & and and and." 101.165.152.142 (talk) 07:16, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

See response in top section of this Talk page. If you think the example sentence you wrote belongs in the article, convince other editors, and also explain why your 46-and example is better for the article than the 93-and example that I wrote. Wikipedia is not a place for personal writing, no matter how clever. RoyLeban (talk) 05:40, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

However, there are many such unattributed contributions. Wikipedia doe not permit isolated removal in this way. Suggest Global deletions (or improve the article). The point missed is that the sentence IS the example - it could just as easily state "it is not easier to read". Alan Davidson (talk) 05:34, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

This is not merely an unattributed contribution and I did not remove it for that reason. I removed it because it is, by Wikipedia's definition, original research, even though I wouldn't call it research. This isn't a published example that has been cited or quoted, and it's not even the best example that somebody could make up (mine, which I properly put in this Talk page, is twice as long). This is very clearly a sentence that somebody made up for the express purpose of putting an example they liked into the page. Whether or not the sentence is interesting or even true is irrelevant.

Your comment "Wikipedia doe[s] not permit isolated removal in this way" is incorrect. In fact, you should not fail to improve Wikipedia because other things are wrong. This is the Other stuff exists policy. Example pages like this always have problems. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make it better.

I'll also add the comment that it is disingenuous of you to write that I missed the point. (I choose to not be offended.) As I made clear in my edit comment, and in my comments on this Talk page, I completely 100% understand the point. Making a point doesn't excuse putting personal writing on the page. The only way this is acceptable is if it says "Some people say..." or "It has been said..." and then you would need a citation. Get your made-up sentence published somewhere and then perhaps it can be cited (but not by you). If that statement was already published somewhere (and not written by you), by all means put it back in and add the citation. (Though, even then, it may still be deemed inappropriate or not important enough.)

If you think I am wrong, please respond here and find editors and administrators to weigh in. Or take it to the Arbitration Committee. I'll abide by their decision (of course). Make sure to explain why the 46-and example belongs but the 93-and example doesn't, and why the eventual 180-ish example that somebody will write doesn't belong either. Don't turn this into an edit war. RoyLeban (talk) 03:10, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

I say this with "good faith" in mind. The point that was missed is that the truth of the sentence is irrelevant. For example we shouldn't argue that the "Buffalo" statement (earlier in the article) is factual right or wrong; it is just a linguistic example. The "And" sentence could be identical with the word "not" added to make the opposite point. The actual statement that is made, is not the point. It is just an linguistic example. And thank you for calling it enterprising. Alan Davidson (talk) 03:30, 24 October 2018 (UTC)


 * If this reply is directed at me, I absolutely did not miss that point. I thought I made that clear. True or false, the sentence is an unsourced sentence written by the contributor, just like the example I wrote which is twice the length. As a word and wordplay lover, I can appreciate the sentence you wrote, enough that I wrote a response, but neither belong in the article. In contrast the "buffalo" sentence is sourced to Dmitri Borgman and is famous enough to have its own Wikipedia page (though I notice it is not sourced on this page). No doubt there is other stuff here that should be cleaned up. RoyLeban (talk) 09:36, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Two Swedish example expressions
I can think of two Swedish such expressions: The first one being "får får får?," which is well known in Sweden and means "do sheep give birth to sheep?," and the second one being "bar barbarbarbarbar bar bar barbarbarbarbar," which is not very well known but is still a grammatically correct sentence and means "naked barbarian-bar-barbarian carried naked barbarian-bar-barbarian." I have no sources for any of the sentences, so I guess I cannot add them. However, if anyone has a source, feel free to add them to the article. —Kri (talk) 12:38, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Removal of Police example
removed If police police police police, who police police police? Police police police police police police. saying Kind of a duplicate of previous example, the previous example being Can can can can can can can can can can. I reverted it since the former had a reference and it's one I've heard before unlike the latter which is unreferenced and which I suspect is less well-known. That was reverted because Both of them have references. I removed the second one because it goes far too in depth and it’s written in unencylopedic language. I'm not sure where there references are for the latter sentence, but I don't think a reference should be remove just because an editor things the explanation is unencyclopedic. If by "the previous example" you mean the earlier police example, I still think that an academic monograph on syntax is a more reliable source than a Business Insider listicle. Umimmak (talk) 04:38, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Yet Another Example
There are always too many examples on a page like this, so I'm not going to add this one now, but if someone else wanted to, there's this dandy example as performed by the late Emma Chambers in The Vicar of Dibley:


 * I can't believe the stuff that is not I Can't Believe It's Not Butter is not I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. And I can't believe that both I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and the stuff that I can't believe is not I Can't Believe It's Not Butter are both, in fact, not butter.

—Steve Summit (talk) 22:34, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Police example inaccurate?
"Police police Police police police police Police police" allegedly parses to "Cops from Police, Poland, whom cops from Poland patrol, patrol cops from Poland." but the grammar doesn't match up and can't be rearranged properly. I believe the sentence should read as "Cops from Police, Poland, who patrol cops from Poland, also patrol cops from Poland" with an original text of "Police Police police police police Police police". Consider the modification of "Denver [Denver police] police {patrol} Denver police" (suggested alternative) vs. "Denver police Denver police police police/{patrol} Denver police" (original), mutated again to "Mumbai [Fashion] police police Mumbai police" vs. "Mumbai police Mumbai police police police/{patrol} Mumbai police". I have not found an alternative source and suspect (but cannot conclude) that the error--if it exists--originated as a typo, was wrongly interpreted in the Business insider article, and escaped detection because of the ambiguity and confusion inherent to the broader subject. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.248.213.123 (talk) 18:11, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion
This definitely may not be notable, but something along the lines of "That's just the kind of person I'm" could fit here? I don't really know how to describe the weirdness of this sentence, but another native English speaker can definitely corroborate. --Bumpf said this! ooh clicky clicky! [insert witty meta-text on wiki-sigs here] 20:39, 26 May 2022 (UTC)


 * There's not really a canonical example sentence to illustrate the limits of auxiliary reduction in English, as far as I'm aware. Umimmak (talk) 18:42, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

I stumbled into this and it seems appropriate
A few weeks ago I came up with this: May's May's maize maze.

May's (month possessive) May's (personal name possessive) maize (a food crop closely related to corn) maze (a complicated branching path; a labyrinth).

Corn mazes are a traditional form of autumn entertainment in America, made using the tall stalks of harvested corn plants. 2601:245:4602:9CC0:B9FE:1898:4871:5B40 (talk) 13:38, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, Wikipedia does not allow WP:Original research. Only previously published material can be used. I recommend you publish your findings in some reputable journal before using it in Wikipedia.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  21:40, 10 November 2023 (UTC)