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[–] 171 points 1 month ago (26 children)

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"

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  • [–] 100 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana

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  • [–] 47 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (7 children)
  • [–] 36 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    Elderly people pilot the watercraft

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    [–] 62 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (10 children)

    This is perfectly sensical. The speaker owns less humans than have visited Berlin.

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    [–] 62 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

    I feel a lot more like I did when I got here than I do now.

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    [–] 58 points 1 month ago* (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 41 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Has Anyone Really Been Far Even as Decided to Use Even Go Want to do Look More Like

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  • [–] 17 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 29 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    In German, we have "Nachts ist es kälter als draußen", which means "at night, it's colder than outside"

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  • [–] 18 points 1 month ago (23 children)

    But this sentence does have meaning.

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  • [–] 33 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    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]

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

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago (14 children)

    Can you rephrase it to show the meaning more clearly?

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    [–] 15 points 1 month ago

    When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago* (3 children)

    In German there is this one poem made of contradictions:

    Dunkel war's, der Mond schien helle,
    als ein Auto blizeschnelle
    langsam um die runde Ecke bog.
    Drinnen sassen stehend Leute,
    schweigend ins Gespräch vertieft

    And I foget the rest....

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  • [–] 12 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Small correction (you missed a line and rhyme) plus additional lines. There are variations, I'm just reciting the one I know, as best as I know it.

    Dunkel war's, der Mond schien helle,
    Schnee lag auf der Sommerflur
    als ein Auto blizeschnelle
    langsam um die runde Ecke fuhr.
    Drinnen sassen stehend Leute,
    schweigend ins Gespräch vertieft
    Als ein totgeschoss'ner Hase
    auf der Sandbank Schlittschuh lief.

    Und ein blondgelockter Jüngling
    mit kohlrabenschwarzem Haar
    saß auf einer grünen Banke,
    die rot angestrichen war.
    Neben ihm ne alte Schrulle,
    die grad siebzehn Jahr alt war,
    und sie aß 'ne Butterstulle
    die mit Schmalz bestrichen war.

    As for a translation, slightly liberal due to missing vocabulary:

    It was dark, the moon shone brightly
    snow covered the summer meadows
    when a car rapidly
    slowly rounded the curved corner
    Within, people sat standing
    in deep, silent conversation,
    when a rabit, shot dead,
    ice-skated on the sandbank

    And a blonde-curled youth
    with hair black as a raven
    sat on a green bench
    which was painted red.
    Next to him an old shrew,
    who was barely seventeen,
    and she ate a buttered bread
    with a spread of lard

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    [–] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Cleopatra lived closer in time to the stegosaurus then we do now.

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