How to use a buffalo as your “hook”

“Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.”

THAT is a complete and grammatically correct sentence! Can anyone explain what it means?

First, some questions for the reader: Did that sentence influence you to read more of this post?” If the answer is yes, Why did it work? 

Whether you were actively trying to solve it, or just curious to see the answer, or even just to find out where that strange statement led – those motivations all have one thing in common – they grabbed your attention and lead to further exploration.

What is the most difficult “behavior” for anyone to elicit from an audience at the beginning of a lesson or a speech or a presentation?

Research shows that increased attention = increased learning. However, getting people ‘s “total attention” at the outset of any endeavor has always been the most difficult task. (And silence doesn’t always mean attention – especially in this age of cell phone technology.) 

When I stumbled on this technique of using an attention-getter, (like the buffalo example above), and decided to try it in my classes, speeches, and presentations, I discovered that it often “hooked” the attention of my audience at the outset – much the same way that it did yours at the beginning of this post.

If the topic of each hook is properly selected, it provides an interesting segue to the point of your lesson/speech/presentation – and it works at every level.

(Also, by engaging the audience’s attention at the outset, there are fewer “disruption” interruptions. So this technique serves as a form of behavior management too.)

But hooks are nothing more than an old advertiser’s gimmick applied to different medium. The opening sentence of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” – “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” – or that huge, rolling boulder in “Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark” – are “hooks” to grab attention.

Every subject has some great (and germane) material that can be used as a hook via a sentence on the board or screen, or as an outrageous statement by you, or a quick five to ten minute project by rows or by individuals. (As with all techniques, however, just be sure that the hook you use fits the main point of your topic.)

To be utterly complex about it, my hook about Buffalo buffalo is often presented as “an example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated linguistic constructs through lexical ambiguity” (How’s THAT for an instructional objective!). 

People don’t need Buffalo buffalos to teach a lesson or make a speech or give a presentation, but that hook technique is definitely a necessity! Case-in-point: When you’ve arrived at your interpretation of that opening sentence, use the hotlink above to see how close you came, then ponder: How “hooked” was I?

Food for thought.

Mac