James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher
I love linguistic quirks, so when my friend AJ posted about this sentence on Facebook, I had to investigate. It turns out that, "James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher" is a valid sentence, and an example of lexical ambiguity. With a bit of explanation, punctuation and emphasis it does actually make sense. Wikipedia explains it as follows, The example refers to two students, James and John, who are required by an English test to describe a man who, in the past, had suffered from a cold. John writes "The man had a cold" which the teacher marks as being incorrect, while James writes the correct "The man had had a cold." Since James' answer was right,…