Perhaps this arises from a liking for American genre fiction such as westerns, detective stories, and sf & fantasy. Though British, I've certainly encountered it from time to time since adolescence (if not before), though more often in the passive, i.e. Were they turned into the frogs? Should we call a prince-ss charming? To overpower, overawe, or constrain by superior force or influence to outwit, perplex. I'm with David on this one - I have never understood the buffalo$^∞$ thing and it had not previously occured to me that there could be a verb "to buffalo", although now that I know that there is I see that the OED confirms this : How commonly is it used in places where you have actual buffalo(e)(s)?
In Australia, we don't use buffalo qua verb (even though there are feral water buffalo in the Northern Territory) and I have never encountered it other than in this contrived sentence. (Sorry, world events have put me in a foul mood.) Which leads ineluctably to the question whether the cartoon's use of "qua qua qua" is indeed a "nice" use of "qua qua qua" qua "qua qua qua" or a meretricious one. To use "qua" to sound pretentious is still to use it qua qua, no? In fact, I'm hard put to imagine a lexically appropriate use of "qua" that would not be qua qua qua. The cartoon's premise is based on a logical fallacy. "Had" had a better effect on the teacher.Īnd then, of course, there’s the old chestnut, “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.”Ĭhestnut Buffalo? What other coat colours do they have? Much to my surprise, my first attempt at punctuation proved to yield a meaningful sentence - Alice, where Mary had had "had had had", had had "had had" "had had" had had a better effect on the teacher.Īlice, where Mary had "had", had "had had had had had had had had". To revive an old chestnut: punctuate this string of words so that it makes sense:Īlice where Mary had had had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher Here's another: can a lawyer face ethical charges for using scienter scienter? I can never read the word "per se" without immediately thinking about how this meaning affects the sentence: ĭeep questions all. Filed by Mark Liberman under Linguistics in the comics.