Worst Sentence You ever read

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Cirtur
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Worst Sentence You ever read

Post by Cirtur »

Out of a book? I think it's probably out of David Eddings' Belgarath where he constantly praises wolves.

Actually I think the thread can be about how David Eddings wants sex with wolves.

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Re: Worst Sentence You ever read

Post by Edminster »

I think I'm going to go with the old standby.
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton PC wrote:It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
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Re: Worst Sentence You ever read

Post by LordRetard »

I read a book called What We All Long For by Dionne Brand which routinely called upon poetic phrases that were completely unintelligible but I can't remember any of them. What a shit author.

I did manage to find a quote that I had sent to a friend on messenger:
Dionne Brand wrote:Then she watched the sun set-not the actual setting but the way anyone in a city sees the sun set, taking it for granted that the pinkish orange hues enveloping the buildings reflect the sun's going light.
What is this bullshit.

Edminster, I don't understand what everyone has against purple prose. I find it colourful and amusing, perhaps not sophisticated as the writer hopes but still very entertaining.

EDIT: Also, my copy of the Brand novel stunk like all manner of things, because it was caught in the rain and the ink in the cover ran.
Last edited by LordRetard on Thu Apr 23, 2009 11:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Worst Sentence You ever read

Post by AHMETxRock »

Twilight dialogue.
Just like an std, will never fully go away.

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Re: Worst Sentence You ever read

Post by Cirtur »

An example please. Just like how I didn't post one.

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Re: Worst Sentence You ever read

Post by Edminster »

LordRetard wrote:Edminster, I don't understand what everyone has against purple prose. I find it colourful and amusing, perhaps not sophisticated as the writer hopes but still very entertaining.
Don't get me wrong, I still find it entertaining; it's just that I prefer shorter, more stubby sentences. As soon as a sentence passes about thirty or so words, I get annoyed at the Author's inability to separate thoughts. Hence my love for the Lyttle Lytton Contest.
Donald J. Bingle wrote:Clifford Hurling used more dental floss than anyone else on the moon.
That happens to be the opening sentence of one of my favourite short-stories.
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Re: Worst Sentence You ever read

Post by LordRetard »

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is also fun for the opposite reasons. You've probably seen it already but still awesome.

My favourite author is Franz Kafka, for his talent at such long-winded sentences, though. I've always considered him a bit of a comedic writer, but that's the writing style I prefer.

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Re: Worst Sentence You ever read

Post by mountainmage »

I have a long-winded sentence to beat any other, and I'll post it when I go home on the weekend.
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Re: Worst Sentence You ever read

Post by Edminster »

LordRetard wrote:The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is also fun for the opposite reasons. You've probably seen it already but still awesome.
Yeah, I know about it, but I still prefer shorter ones. It's why I find
Adam Cadre wrote:Jennifer stood there, quietly ovulating.
infinitely funnier than
Gary Dahl wrote:Gwendolyn, a world-class mountaineer, summoned the last of her strength for one more heroic haul on the nylon strap (for she was, after so many failed attempts, dangerously close to exhaustion) and looked heavenward with resolve, aware that, in spite of her fatigue and anguish, she must breach the crevice in one well-coordinated movement, somehow cleave the smooth fissure with the flimsy synthetic strand even though she was chaffed raw by her repeated efforts, or more sensibly, just give the heave-ho to this new-fangled (and painfully small) Victoria's Secret thong and slip into her well-worn — and infinitely more roomy — knickers.
I firmly believe that Brevity is the Soul of Wit.
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Re: Worst Sentence You ever read

Post by FengharTheNord »

Both of thems real good sentencers, yup yup.

I'm so torn! Short sentences give that punch and, when they are able to be taken out of context and still be funny, like in the case of Adam Cadre's sentence, they are particularly powerful.

But long sentences, when executed correctly, can reveal such complex thought, ideas, and detail.

I think it comes down to a case-by-case scenario, and, in this case, I think I'm gonna have to put up a vote for the shorter one.
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Re: Worst Sentence You ever read

Post by LordRetard »

I think that's a biased example, because the short one just happens to be the funnier one.

This is one that I prefer, and the winner of the 2008 contest, although I am admittedly offended by his poor choice of name.
Garrison Spik wrote:Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped "Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J."

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Re: Worst Sentence You ever read

Post by Lethal Interjection »

I don't think I could find my worst sentence back again, but I believe it was in Tom Clancy's Executive Orders (which is an extensively long book). I remember being taken aback by the terribleness, and had to read it to my roomate.

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Re: Worst Sentence You ever read

Post by mountainmage »

Alright, I'm home and I promised you long sentences. I looked through my trusty copy of The Iliad/The Odyssey and found a couple of doozies. I'm sure there are ones longer than the ones I'm going to post now, but I don't feel like combing through every page.
Therefore he was named Simöeisius, but he did not live to pay his parents for his rearing, for he was cut off untimely by the spear of mighty Ajax, who struck him in the breast by the right nipple as he was coming on among the foremost fighters; the spear went right through his shoulder, and he fell as a poplar that has grown straight and tall in a meadow by some mere, and its top is thick with branches.
Thoas came close to him, pulled the spear out of his chest, and then drawing his sword, smote him in the middle of the belly so that he died; but he did not strip him of his armor, for his Thracian comrades, men who wear their hair in a tuft at the top of their heads, stood round the body and kept him off with their long spears for all his great stature and valor, so he was driven back.
He rushed across the plain like a winter torrent that has burst its barrier in full flood; no dykes, no walls of fruitful vineyards can embank it when it is swollen with rain from heaven, but in a moment it comes tearing onward, and lays many a field waste that many a strong man's hand has reclaimed - even so were the dense phalanxes of the Trojans driven in rout by the son of Tydeus, and many though they were, they dared not abide his onslaught.
In my father's stables there are eleven excellent chariots, fresh from the builder, quite new, with cloths spread over them; and by each of them there stand a pair of horses, champing barley and rye; and my old father Lyacon urged me again and again when I was at home and on the point of starting, to take chariots and horses with me that I might lead the Trojans in battle, but I would not listen to him; it would have been much better if I had done so, but I was thinking about the horses, which had been used to eat their fill, and I was afraid that in such a great gathering of men they might be ill-fed, so I left them at home and came on foot to Ilius armed only with my bow and arrows.
Or as a savage lion attacking a herd of cows while they are feeding by thousands in the low-lying meadows by some wide-watered shore - the herdsman is at his wit's end how to protect his herd and keeps going about now in the van and now in the rear of his cattle, while the lion springs into the thick of them and fastens on a cow so that they all tremble for fear - even so where the Achæns utterly panic-stricken by Hector and father Jove.
Or, we can always go with the time-honored classic from "A Tale of Two Cities":
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way— in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
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Re: Worst Sentence You ever read

Post by Edminster »

mountainmage wrote:I have a long-winded sentence to beat any other, and I'll post it when I go home on the weekend.
mountainmage on Wed Apr 29, 2009 2:06 am wrote:Alright, I'm home and I promised you long sentences.
I want to live in Florida, where the weekend starts in the middle of the week.
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Re: Worst Sentence You ever read

Post by mountainmage »

Obviously, I got home early. Harrumph.
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