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This is a cool riddle, which my Maths teacher taught our class, 25 years ago. I still remember it and find it very cool.

Can you create a perfectly valid English sentence, which makes perfect sense, but which contains the word "and" in it, five times consecutively in a row ?

"Something-or-other and and and and and something-else."

Let's see if anyone else knows the answer to this one.

I'll post the answer in a couple of days.

(Dedicated to Mr Quick, my excellent Maths teacher from Tavistock College, Devon, England.)

feelinferrety
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Mike Gledhill
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    There's a similar puzzle that requires you to punctuate eleven "had"s in a row. – paste May 02 '16 at 13:37
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    Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. – Dave May 02 '16 at 14:07
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    Also one with "that": http://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/2578/ – f'' May 02 '16 at 18:35
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    All of the knowledge he had had had had no impact on his ability to answer riddles – Dave May 02 '16 at 19:52
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    I learnt a similar one in Spanish: ¿Cómo como? Como como como. – Manuel May 03 '16 at 03:07
  • @Manuel I also know a few in Dutch, like: "Als zagen zagen zagen zagen zagen zagen zagen zagen." or "Als vliegen achter vliegen vliegen vliegen vliegen vliegensvlug." or "Als zeven zeven zeven zeven zeven, zeven zeven zeven zeven zeven." – Kevin Cruijssen May 03 '16 at 12:36
  • And one of my favorite (idiotic) Dutch tongue-twisters is: "Kapper Knap, de knappe kapper, knipt and kapt zeer knap, maar de geknipt en gekapte knappe knecht van de knappe kapper Knap knipt and kapt nog knapper dan de knappe kapper Knap zelf knipt en kapt. Maar het geknipt en gekapte knappe kind van de knappe kapper Knap, knipt and kapt nog knapper dan de knappe kapper Knap en de knecht van de knappe kapper Knap zelf knippen en kappen. Maar de geknipt en gekapte knappe kat van de knappe kapper Knap, knipt en kapt het knapst van alle knippende en kappende knappe kappers. Knap hè?" ;) – Kevin Cruijssen May 03 '16 at 12:37
  • @KevinCruijssen Thanks for these. However, I tried to confirm "Als zeven zeven zeven zeven zeven, zeven zeven zeven zeven zeven." on https://ivypanda.com/tongue-twisters-dutch and Google translate, but neither yielded comprehensible fruit ("Like seven seven seven seven, seven seven seven seven."). Could you gloss it? Thanks. – user87072 Feb 21 '24 at 20:04
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    @user87072 'zeven' has obviously multiple meanings. The most common meaning is indeed 'seven'; but it can also mean 'sieving' (usually used in the context of sieving sand); or the plural form of 'zeef', which means 'multiple sieves'. In this sentence, the English translation would roughly be 'If 7 sieves would sieve 7 sieves 7 times, then 7 sieves would sieve 7 sieves 7 times.' – Kevin Cruijssen Feb 21 '24 at 22:09
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    @user87072 Another fun one is 'Als in het dorpje Bergen, bergen Bergen bergen bergen bergen, bergen bergen Bergen bergen bergen.' (If in the village of [1 Bergen] [2 a large amount of] [3 residences of Bergen] [6 are hiding/storing] [4 a large amount of] [5 mountains], then [8 a large amount of] [9 residences of Bergen] [7 are hiding/storing] [10 a large amount of] [11 mountains]. - the numbers indicate which 'bergen' in the sentence is which translated part, since the grammatical order in Dutch is slightly different than in English.) – Kevin Cruijssen Feb 21 '24 at 22:24

2 Answers2

63

I've also heard it before :)

Let's say we have a store owner and his clerk. The store owner want the clerk to make a sign for the shop, which has the name (for example): "Toys And Puzzles".

So, the clerk makes the sign and presents it to the owner.
The owner thinks the spacing isn't really good. It currently looks something like:
Toys And Puzzles
but he wanted it to look more like:
Toys And Puzzles

So he says to the clerk:
"The spacing between Toys and And and And and Puzzles should be a bit larger. Could you please fix that?"

Kevin Cruijssen
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    The funny thing about this is that despite how awkward that looks in text form, when you say it out aloud it's not that bad. – Xylius May 02 '16 at 11:30
  • @Xylius I agree. Although if I would ever use a sentence like this (probably never), I would add a comma before the "and". :P ("The spacing between Toys and And , and And and Puzzles should be a bit larger.") – Kevin Cruijssen May 02 '16 at 11:35
  • Yippie, you're cool B| – ABcDexter May 02 '16 at 11:38
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    Just five ands? Amateur ;-) – Angew is no longer proud of SO May 02 '16 at 11:46
  • Genius, hey ? I wonder if Kevin had the same Maths teacher as me !! (Btw, in my English version, the sign read 'Fish and Chips'. It was a more unhealthy version of the puzzle !) – Mike Gledhill May 02 '16 at 11:48
  • @Angew Please put that as an answer :'D – ABcDexter May 02 '16 at 11:58
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    @Angew: Wikipedia gives an example with *forty-six* "and"s in a row. (The last entry under "Lexical ambiguity". – Darrel Hoffman May 02 '16 at 13:41
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    Of course that can go on forever. Referring to that sentence, did you notice that there were spaces between and and and, and and and &... – paste May 02 '16 at 13:45
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    This is what quotation marks are for. "The spacing between 'Toys' and 'And' and 'And' and 'Puzzles'..." – sumelic May 02 '16 at 14:03
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    I find the spacing in this answer to be a little tight. Could you add more space between toys and and and and and and and and and and and and and puzzles? – Ian MacDonald May 02 '16 at 14:33
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    @IanMacDonald Are you referring to the bold part at the bottom, so I should add spacing between between 'Toys' and 'and', and 'and' and 'And', and 'And' and 'and', and 'and' and 'And', and 'And' and 'and', and 'and' and 'Puzzles'? – Kevin Cruijssen May 02 '16 at 14:40
  • @IanMacDonald I feel your comment would be improved if you led by example and added more space between toys and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and puzzles. – N. Virgo May 02 '16 at 14:54
  • @Nathaniel Lol. We can continue with this until we run out of characters to fit in a comment. ;p – Kevin Cruijssen May 02 '16 at 14:59
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    The question is : can we achieve every number of 'and' or only some specific numbers ? – Fabich May 03 '16 at 09:36
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    @Lordofdark Based on how we currently use it, I'd say specific numbers. We started with 'Something And SomethingElse' (1 'And') which caused 'Something' and 'And' and 'And' and 'SomethingElse' (5 'And's) when we talked about spacing. After that we went to 'Something' and 'and', and 'and' and 'And', and 'And' and 'and', and 'and' and 'And', and 'And' and 'and', and 'and' and 'SomethingElse' (21 'And's). So it seems to follow 4 * N + 1 (where N is the amount of 'And's in the original sentence, and the result is the amount of 'and'/'And' when we talk about the "spacing". :) – Kevin Cruijssen May 03 '16 at 10:20
  • @KevinCruijssen - That doesn't explain the 46 in the link I posted above. I think the formula may be off? – Darrel Hoffman May 03 '16 at 13:18
  • @DarrelHoffman Hmm, good point. In the example of 46 they excluded the "Fish" and "Chips" though, but even with them (and two additional 'and's) my formula stil isn't correct.. Ah well, I tried.. – Kevin Cruijssen May 03 '16 at 13:25
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    'and' has lost all meaning to me... – G_as_in_Gnome Mar 31 '17 at 07:23
  • @DarrelHoffman I was curious even though the 46 example is gone from Wikipedia... so I wayback machined it.

    In a similar vein, Martin Gardner offered the example: "Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign' have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?"[4](see below...)

     – user87072 Feb 29 '24 at 08:51
  • This sentence is much easier to read because the writer placed commas between and and & and and and And, & and and and And & and And and and, & and And and and & and and and And, & and and and And & and And and and, & and And and and & and and and [Chips]. (46 ands in a row).<< The reason that this count differs from @KevinCruijssen's equation is that they're using 2 quoted "ands" at a time, represented by being spelt out. The ampersands are grammatically functional in the sentence at hand, separating quoted ands. – user87072 Feb 29 '24 at 08:53
  • Oh yeah, and I agree that infinite recursives are cheating, which the initial 5-and construction already sort of fulfills. Well, definitely 21 and above. – user87072 Feb 29 '24 at 08:56
  • Waited too long to edit. 2 to 4 quoted "ands" at a time – user87072 Feb 29 '24 at 09:01
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    @user87072 For future reference, there's no need for Wayback Machine on Wikipedia - the page history is all there. Here's a link to the page as it looked when I made that comment 8 years ago... – Darrel Hoffman Mar 02 '24 at 06:31
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The question itself provides an answer:

Can you create a perfectly valid English sentence, which makes perfect sense, but which contains the word "and" in it, five times consecutively in a row, like this: "Something-or-other and and and and and something-else."?

I kept it relatively intact but we could easily alter it slightly so that it only contains valid words.

JBentley
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