5 Stange Sentences in English

This is why English is the coolest and craziest language at the same time.


1. I never said she stole my money.
This fun sentence takes on seven different meanings depending on which word is emphasized: [I] never said she stole my money. - Someone else said it. I [never] said she stole my money. - I didn't say it. I never [said] she stole my money. - I only implied it. I never said [she] stole my money. - I said someone did, not necessarily her. I never said she [stole] my money. - I considered it borrowed. I never said she stole [my] money. - Only that she stole money--- not necessarily my own. I never said she stole my [money]. - She stole something of mine, not my money. While this trick works for plenty of other sentences as well, this one’s short and easy to understand.

2. All the faith he had had had had no effect on the outcome of his life.
While it may look like someone copied “had” and pressed the paste button a few too many times, this is actually an example of what happens when the past perfect tense gets used back-to-back. The first and third “hads” are the auxiliary verbs, while the second and fourth ones are the main verbs. Stylistically speaking, the sentence would probably be less confusing if written, “He had had a lot of faith, but it had had no effect on the outcome of his life,” but what fun is that?

3. The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families.
The fun thing about this sentence is that “complex,” “houses,” and “married” can all serve as different parts of speech. We automatically tend to assume that “houses” is a noun, “complex” is an adjective, and “married” is a verb, but when you realize that “complex” is a housing complex and that soldiers who are married are staying there, things make a lot more sense.

4. The horse raced past the barn fell.
You don’t really appreciate little words like “who,” “which,” or “that” until you come across a sentence like this one. The headache you’re experiencing trying to figure this out is due to the presence of a reductive relative clause, which can be seen in sentences like, “The song heard on the radio was beautiful,” instead of, “The song that was heard on the radio was beautiful.” All we have to do to make this a little more simple is change the first part of the sentence: “The horse that was raced past the barn fell.”

5. A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed
The letter combination “-ough” has nine possible pronunciations in English (depending on regional dialect), and this delightful sentence contains them all: “uff,” “oh,” “auh,” “ow,” “uh,” “oo,” “off,” and “uhp.” How’s that for a tongue-twister?

For further reading:

http://distractify.com/avericlements/the-19-most-mind-blowing-sentences-in-the-english-language/