What is a sentence with the same word several times repeated?

There is a common misconception that surrounds this problem, namely,
that the sentence:

Jill, where Jack had had "had," had had "had had."

has seven "had"'s in a row.  The misconception lies in not recognizing
the difference between using a word and mentioning a word.  When a word
is used in a sentence, it is not quoted; when it is mentioned, it is
quoted.  The quoted word "'had'" is not the same as the unquoted word
"had." Therefore, this sentence has no more than two repeats of any
word.

The most satisfying case of repeated words occurs when the repeated
words all mean different things in the sentence.  An example of
unsatisfactory repetition is intensifying an adjective or adverb by
simply repeating it over and over:

The coffee was very very very very very ... very hot.

Even though the word "very" occurs arbitrarily many times, it means the
same in each case.  A sentence can be constructed that has a noun
repeated arbitrarily many times, followed by a verb repeated the same
number of times:

 1. Bulldogs fight
 2. Bulldogs bulldogs fight fight.
  (i.e., bulldogs (that) bulldogs fight, (themselves) fight)
 3. Bulldogs bulldogs bulldogs fight fight fight.
  (i.e., bulldogs (that) bulldogs (that) bulldogs fight, (themselves)
  fight, (themselves) fight)
  ...

The inflation of this type of sentence can be accelerated by the use of
the three senses of the word "buffalo":

 1. oxen (noun)
 2. baffle (verb)
 3. from a city in Western New York (adjective, usually capitalized)

The progression becomes:

 1. Buffalo buffalo buffalo.
  (i.e., Buffalo (from the city of) Buffalo baffle.)
 2. Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.
  (i.e., Buffalo (from the city of) Buffalo (that) buffalo (from the
  city of) Buffalo baffle, (themselves) baffle.)
 3. Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.
  (i.e., Buffalo (from the city of) Buffalo (that) Buffalo (from the
  city of) Buffalo (that) Buffalo (from the city of) Buffalo baffle,
  (themselves) baffle, (themselves) baffle.)
  ...

This sentence will have an adjective-noun pair repeated arbitarily
many times, then a verb repeated the same number of times.  So the
word "buffalo" really only has three meanings in the sentence.

A progression using the pronoun, conjunction and adjective meanings of
the word "that" was composed by George Herbert Moberly in the 1850s.

 1. I saw that C saw.
  (i.e., I saw the following: C saw.)

 2. C saw that that I saw.
  (i.e., C saw the thing which I saw) 

 3. I saw that that that C saw was so.
  (i.e., I saw the following: the thing which C saw was so.)

 4. C saw that, that that that I saw was so.
  (i.e., C saw this fact, the following: the thing which I saw was so.)

 5. I saw that, that _that_ that that C saw was so.
  (i.e., I saw this fact, the following: the specific thing which C saw was so.)

 6. C saw _that_ that, that _that_ that that I saw was so.
  (i.e., C saw the specific thing, the following: the specific
  thing which I saw was so.)

 7. I saw _that_ that, that _that_ that that _that_ C saw was so.
  (i.e., I saw the specific fact, the following: the specific thing which
  the specific C saw was so.)

In the final statement, the first, fourth and seventh "that"'s are
adjectives meaning "specific," the second and fifth are pronouns,
and the third and sixth are conjunctions.  Thus there are seven uses
but only three meanings.

Here is an example with five "had"'s in a row, each with a different
meaning.  This is the longest known case of this phenomenon.  As an
aid to understanding, we'll build it up a step at a time.

The parents were unable to conceive, so they hired someone else to
be a surrogate.

The parents had had a surrogate have their child.

The parents had had their child had.

The child had had no breakfast.

The child the parents had had had had had no breakfast.

[ Editor: from alt.usage.english, November 1993, forwarded by Mark
Brader. ]

Does anyone know of a sentence with nine "and"s in a row, that makes
sense?  I remember there being one, but have forgotten it!
I do know, however, that there is a sentence with eleven "had"s in a
row, viz.

John, where Peter had had "had had" had had "had", "had had" had had
the teacher's approval.

Sometimes I give this to friends, but without the punctuation to see
if they can punctuate it, so that it makes sense.
Also, are there any other sentences in other languages that allow more
than eleven of the same word together?
In german, one can do it with five, with NO punctuation:

Wann Fliegen hinter Fliegen fliegen Fliegen fliegen Fliegen nach.

(When flies are flying behind flies, flies are flying in front of
flies.)

-- Timothy G Wright <twright@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

[ Editor: Mark Brader's comments, in mail to the archive maintainer,
on examples in an earlier version of this entry: ]

> The parents had had had their child.

I suppose this might be argued to be correct, but "had had their child
had" is much more natural.

> The child whose parents had had had had had no breakfast.

And this is wrong.  The object of the first "had had" (I'm not sure if
"object" is right; the thing corresponding to "their child" in the
previous quoted line) is completely missing.  Using a male pronoun,
it should read:

> The child whose parents had had him had had had no breakfast.

And this is no good.  What is more, I remember pointing this out
before.  And, as I recall, I also pointed out the fix:

  The son that his parents had had had had had no breakfast.

I changed it to "son" to avoid gender quibbles on "his".

> 3. Bulldogs bulldogs bulldogs fight fight fight.

Right.

-- Mark Brader <msb@sq.com>, November 1993

There is also an algorithm for producing a grammatical English sentence
consisting *only* of repetitions of the word 'buffalo'.  This relies on
the curious fact that 'buffalo' is a transitive verb:

    buffalo, v.t. to bewilder: to overawe (Chambers, 1988)

So buffalo buffalo, and in New York State Buffalo buffalo buffalo,
thereafter the 'bulldogs fight' method of construction will produce
sentences like "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo
buffalo".

Similarly, "fish fish fish fish fish fish", noting

    fish, v.t. to strengthen with a fish or fish-plate (ibid)

and wherever else you can find a plural noun that is also a transitive
verb.

-- Gareth Rees <gdr11@cl.cam.ac.uk>, January 1994

I'm not by any means an English expert, so please feel free to point
out the flaw in my solution:

Joe is very very very very very . . . . . . . very wealthy.

-- Philip D. Tucker <pdt@gandalf.baylor.edu>