James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher

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"James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher" is an English sentence demonstrating lexical ambiguity. The sentence is often given as a word puzzle for which one must find the proper punctuation to give it meaning.[1] Reichenbach used it in 1947 as an exercise to the reader (but as "John where Jack…"), to illustrate the different levels of language, namely object language and metalanguage.[2]

The phrase can be understood more clearly by adding punctuation and quotation marks:

James, while John had had "had," had had "had had";

"had had" had had a better effect on the teacher.[3]

The meaning could thus be rendered, after some reordering and changing a few words, "While John had used 'had,' James had used 'had had.' The teacher had preferred 'had had.'"

Contents

[edit] Use in literature

A similar, punctuated repetition of had had appears in Jasper Fforde's The Well of Lost Plots:

Good. Item seven. The had had and that that problem. [...] 'Okay,' said the Bellman, whose head was in danger of falling apart like a chocolate orange, 'let me get this straight: David Copperfield, unlike Pilgrim's Progress, which had had had, had had had had. Had had had had TGC's approval?'

There was a very long pause.

'Right,' said the Bellman with a sigh.


[edit] Extendability

A sentence with fewer hads can be made: James, while John had "had," had "had had"; "had had" had a better effect on the teacher. Using this, the original sentence can be made even longer if the teacher is a grammar teacher whose students are thinking of sentences with many hads. Each student has a sentence; John's sentence is the one mentioned at the beginning of this section, and James' is the sentence that is the subject of the article. The extended sentence (with punctuation) is: "James, while John had had "had had had had had had had had," had had "had had had had had had had had had had had"; "had had had had had had had had had had had" had had a better effect on the teacher. (The sentence has 36 hads.) This means that John had thought of the sentence mentioned at the beginning of this section, while James had thought of the sentence that is the subject of this article. The teacher is looking for the longest sentence, so James' is better. It can be made even longer by making James' sentence into this one, with the 36 hads, and can keep being extended in this way forever.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ 3802 - Operator Jumble
  2. ^ Reichenbach, Hans (1947) Elements of symbolic logic. London: Collier-MacMillan. Exercise 3-4, p.405; solution p.417.
  3. ^ "Problem C: Operator Jumble". 31st ACM International Collegiate Programming Conference, 2006–2007.
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