Can you decipher these playfully convoluted sentences?

These five linguistic labyrinths are intended to befuddle—or at least to misdirect one’s thinking for comic effect.

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Sometimes the English language can be downright bizarre.

The plural of ox is oxen, yet the plural of box is boxes; rough rhymes with gruff, even though the two words have only two letters in common; and there are actually more than 900 exceptions to the infamous “i before e except after c” rule.

If you’re still not convinced that the English language is full of oddities and conundrums, take a look at these five wacky sentences that are actually grammatically correct:

1. All the faith he had had had had no effect on the outcome of his life.

Well, talk about lexical ambiguity. As strange as this sentence might sound, though, it is actually grammatically correct. The sentence relies on a double use of the past perfect. The two instances of “had had” play different grammatical roles in the sentences—the first is a modifier while the second is the main verb of the sentence.

2. One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas; how he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.

This famous Groucho Marx joke plays on the fact that the same sentence can often be interpreted in more than one way. The first sentence can be read in two discrete ways:

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