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The opposite is “garden path sentences” that seem incorrect or gibberish at first, but then make sense once you’ve correctly parsed them.
“The old man the boat”
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana
Teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a day, give a man a fish and he’ll eat for the rest of his (*stab*) life.
Give a man fire, he’ll be warm for a while, set a man on fire, he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.
Teach fish-man…to a life time!
Swordfish
if you throw it
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
I remember seeing it in school and having it explained to me so many times and my brain just refuses to understand it.
Buffalonian bison [that] Buffalonian bison bully [, likewise] bully Buffalonian bison
(Buffalonian is the demonym for residents of Buffalo, NY)
Police police police police police police police police police police.
Pig pig pig pig pig pig pig pig pig pig.
James, while John had had “had”, had had “had had”; “had had” had had more approval from the teacher.
Have you ever had a dream that, that, um, that you had, uh, that you had to, you could, you do, you wit, you wa, you could do so, you do you could, you want, you wanted him to do you so much you could do anything?
I’m not getting it.
Elderly people pilot the watercraft
The seniors crew the ship
Octogenarians command the tide-faring vessel.
That’s the same sentence, but with a hat and monocle
The old [people] man (as a verb) the boat.
Thank you!
This one took me a couple of rereads lol
This one is different if you’re reading vs saying it though, I would def emphasize syllables differently for “The old man” (subj) vs “The old” (subj) “man” (verb)
My favorite is “The horse raced past the barn fell.”
“You can’t have your cake and eat it too!”
I feel a lot more like I did when I got here than I do now.
Thats a good one i like that
This one genuinely inflicts psychic damage to my brain.
There isn’t a place on Earth I’d rather not be
This is perfectly sensical. The speaker owns less humans than have visited Berlin.
Fewer
Sure
Accepted
Affirmative
Ack
Or, the speaker is not a person, and is some kind of plural entity, and the number of their instances that visited Berlin isn’t as large as it could be
deleted by creator
If the speaker owns the people then does their visited Berlin become the speakers?
Speaker can own 0 people
I have zero people, therefore more people have been to Berlin than I have. If I had a sufficient number of people, this sentence could be false. I’d probably need to be a dictator of a medium sized country, but it’s possible.
Berlin had 12.4 million visitors in 2025. not all of those will have visited for the first time, but I’d still argue that medium sized won’t suffice here.
To say nothing about the fact that there is no time limit on when the person needs to have visited.
Xi have more people than Berlin
Has Anyone Really Been Far Even as Decided to Use Even Go Want to do Look More Like
You’ve got to be kidding me. I’ve been further even more decided to use even go need to do look more as anyone can. Can you really be far even as decided half as much to use go wish for that? My guess is that when one really been far even as decided once to use even go want, it is then that he has really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like. It’s just common sense.
I know i sure have.
But this sentence does have meaning.
Escher sentences are ungrammatical because a matrix clause subject like more people is making a comparison between two sets of individuals, but there is no such set of individuals in the second clause.[5] For the sentence to be grammatical, the subject of the second clause must be a bare plural.[6] Linguists have marked that it is “striking” that, despite the grammar of these sentences not possibly having a meaningful interpretation, people so often report that they sound acceptable,[7] and that it is “remarkable” that people seldom notice any error.[5]
ah prescriptive linguistics, never change.
This isn’t prescriptive linguistics
if these linguists are surprised that people use language however they like then they sure as beans ain’t descriptive.
i don’t think people are naturally speaking in Escher sentences.
i mean if you say
Nobody is surprised by anything. They’re describing a phenomenon that happens in language.
Good one.
When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
Cleopatra lived closer in time to the stegosaurus then we do now.
Statistically there are more people than outside the average.
Can make sense, imo.
If the speaker has never been to Berlin, then, naturally, more people will have been there than the speaker.
Even if the speakers has been there a million times… The speaker is still a single person, so there will definitely have been more people in Berlin than only the speaker
See: No well-informed meaning.
The point of language is to convey meaning. Grammar is less important than what the speaker wants to tell other people.
If this sentence, in context of a larger conversation, has meaning to the people listening to it, then congratulations! Rejoice, for communication has been achieved! Whether it was grammatically correct or not is irrelevant, because the intended target understands.
Language changes over time. Nobody just decided to come up with modern English one day and it caught on, it’s a gross pot filled with words and grammar from many other languages (some more melted than others, so not really a melting pot), and mostly filtered from a language nobody speaks anymore.
So having what are essentially arbitrary rules that dictate how things must always be for that language is already pretty dumb to me.
But Escher sentences eschew that, because they are gramatically fine but convey no real meaning. Which is why a paradox like “this sentence is a lie” counts as one. And I like them because escher sentences are a rebel jist like me frfr
such a flex to put Escher and eschew so close together 🙌
Yes but my point is that if it conveys meaning to the intended target, it’s irrelevant.
Plenty of sentences, out of context, have no real meaning. The example in OP is one that could have meaning in the right context, which would be understood by its recipient
This is one of those points that, although correct, is so vague as to be largely pointless unless discussing miscommunication or something of the like. Or are you suggesting we are never allowed to talk about sentence structure or logic again?
Agree with this 100%
Folks that spend time sniping grammatical errors are boring. I’ll go out of my way to decipher someone’s weird ass sentence structure just so they feel understood. Say your grammatically inccorect Yoda sounding shit to me please.
But it’s not sniping grammatical errors, it’s constructing a sentence that feels right but is devoid of meaning. This is a puzzle, not someone’s embarrassment.
I was responding to the parent comment not to OP.
And to be fair, if the person in OP may have just found the most ridiculous way to say they’ve never been to Berlin.
Well, you’ve only been to Berlin a few times while other people have been there millions of times
It was midnight and the sun was shining; The swallows were grazing, whilst the cows leapt from branch to branch; An old man, just 14 years old; Sitting upright on a rounded stone with four corners; Silent, he said: “The four greatest prophets were three: Abraham and Jeremiah!”
these are falsehoods, not ambiguous nonsense
Probably in chapter 1 of “How to Politician”
What is the difference between an Escher sentence and a non sequitur?
A non-sequitur just doesn’t relate back to the current topic of discussion in any meaningful way.
An Escher sentence, as I understand it, sounds valid but doesn’t actually have any real meaning when you actually parse through it. A non-sequitur still has meaning as a sentence, it’s just off-topic.
Cheese is available.
omgwhere???
Python speakers unaffected
