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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 🙌
This is perfectly sensical. The speaker owns less humans than have visited Berlin.
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
Fewer
What is the difference between an Escher sentence and a non sequitur?
Cheese is available.
Cleopatra lived closer in time to the stegosaurus then we do now.
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”
I’m not getting it.
Elderly people pilot the watercraft
The seniors crew the ship
Octogenarians command the tide-faring vessel.
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana
if you throw it
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.
Teach fish-man…to a life time!
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.
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?
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
James, while John had had “had”, had had “had had”; “had had” had had more approval from the teacher.
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.
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)
I feel a lot more like I did when I got here than I do now.
This one genuinely inflicts psychic damage to my brain.
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 vertieftAnd I foget the rest…
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 sandbankAnd 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
In German, we have “Nachts ist es kälter als draußen”, which means “at night, it’s colder than outside”
Bier schmeckt besser als im Glas
Beer tastes better than in a glass? 🤔
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
