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chomsky challenge 01 - 10
Finding acceptable contexts for impossible sentences!

Chomsky Park is named in honour of the famous linguist Noam Chomsky. He had the idea that it was possible to create a sentence that was grammatically correct but impossible, for example, "Colourless green ideas sleep furiously".

However, it is a well-known fact that we will always assume that there is meaning in everything people say or write, even if it appears to be nonsense. To prove this, we take on all-comers in the Chomsky Challenge: you write us a sentence, we’ll find an acceptable context!

For example, take Chomsky's own: "Colourless green ideas sleep furiously".
Context: Well, so would you if you’d had your green stolen the previous evening...

NB This page contains lies!

Chomsky Challenge: 01 - 10

01: Walking trees eat red clouds
The trees are on the side of an erupting volcano, with clouds of sparks disappearing in their foliage

02: Blue moons crawl secretly!
…on the other sides of planets in constellations too distant for us to see

03: A bald man with curly hair.
…all over the rest of his body, e.g., his chest

04: The mild pink song runs relaxedly through the sea
The song is a well-known Japanese fish

05: The lively dead boy runs smoothly
The “dead boy” is a piece of theatre machinery for raising the curtain

06: Black lemon trees eat swimming pools unanimously.
As the lemons go bad and fall into the water, the owners have to drain them and re-fill them

07: Crazy telephones manage soundless people
People have to sit speechless following telephones telling them to “Press Number One if you want to speak to a human”

08: Polite shoes had played these buildings
He was a well-known Blues trumpeter in the ‘Twenties

09: Noise residues tumble down wet silences
The thunder from that lightning has just reached this quiet rainy spot

10: Green thoughts eat sands fearlessly.
Ecologists' dramatic plans to turn deserts back into savannah

See? We think it’s impossible to write a meaningless (but grammatical) sentence.

Why don’t you try The Chomksy Challenge?

Visit Chomsky Park and send us a sentence: we'll find the context.

Chomsky Challenge: 01-10 | 11-20 | 21-30
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