It was a dark and stormy night

[time]

I'd like to share this piece of writing with you. Amongst its many outstanding qualities, the tribute to commas that this single sentence embodies must be singled out for special commendation. Enjoy.

The little cottage in which I am staying looks like it was planted here between the hills, as indeed all of them do, for they are as much a part of the countryside as the ploughed potato fields and the turf bogs, which, incidentally, as I am sitting here writing to you, the smell of the smoke from the turf fire is drifting in under the door, along with the music of Roisin Dubh, which the man of the house is playing on some kind of old stringed instrument that sounds almost like a mandolin, both of which fill me with such a sense of how I, and all of us have missed by not being more familiar with these parts of Ireland.

And this:

The song was 'When I Am With You', and listening to Colin singing it, Rosaleen couldn't help but be impressed by the deep quality of his voice, and she could tell that the others felt the same way by the silent attitudes being communicated towards Billy, the m.c., in that the singer hadn't been oversold, and she even felt a smile on her lips at Billy's own response, for his expression was heavy with complacency, which not only said that he agreed with their opinion, but it tended to back up his own good judgement, that he knew before they did, exactly how good the singer was going to be.

From 'The Divided Heart', by Eileen Sherman.

They're best if read out loud, but don't forget to start with a lungful of air.

 

[Dozer]

Most of my grammar instructors in both College and High School would have disapproved of all the commas--but I like it. It communicates that the author is describing one particular item, and the thought is kept together.

Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for the instruction that I received in English and grammar, but I am glad that I've had the freedom to develop my own writing style. After all, how interesting would books be if everyone wrote in the same fashion?

 

[Mercutio]

I see no problem with the above. You haven't seen anything until you've tried to read a couple pages of Goethe in German. In college it was a game I liked to call "Where's the verb".

Besides, I've been known to do the same thing.

 

[time]

I'm sorry I mentioned the commas. :roll: I don't think there's anything much wrong technically with the grammar.

But are you saying you could really comprehend what she was saying? That every part of each sentence actually made sense?

I was hoping this would encourage others to post examples of tortuous writing. Sentences that are best navigated with a snow plough, or anything else that causes your eyes to water, would be great.

 

[Cliptin]

I'm sorry I mentioned the commas. :roll: I don't think there's anything much wrong technically with the grammar.

But are you saying you could really comprehend what she was saying? That every part of each sentence actually made sense?

I was hoping this would encourage others to post examples of tortuous writing. Sentences that are best navigated with a snow plough, or anything else that causes your eyes to water, would be great.

Commas are for joining a dependant clause to an independant clause. They join two related clauses, one of which can not stand alone. However, while not technicaly correct, particular sentence structure lends an emotional feel beyond what is simply stated in words. It's like body language for the written word. Long sentences contructed of clauses and commas bring one emotional description to my mind: frantic.

You could also desribe it as stream-of-consciousness writing.

 

[flagreen]

It is a classic example of an author not understanding that it is quality that matters, not quantity. She is trying too hard to be a good writer.

It is Hemmingway's simplicity which makes his works great.

 

[Buck]

Like this?

Commas are for joining a dependant clause to an independent clause, which effectively joins two related clauses, one of which therefore, cannot stand-alone and be technically correct, unless particular sentence structure lends an emotional feel beyond what is simply stated in words, which can be illustrated like a body language for the written word where long sentences constructed of clauses and commas bring one emotional description to my mind: frantic.

 

[Cliptin]

Like this?

Commas are for joining a dependant clause to an independent clause, which effectively joins two related clauses, one of which therefore, cannot stand-alone and be technically correct, unless particular sentence structure lends an emotional feel beyond what is simply stated in words, which can be illustrated like a body language for the written word where long sentences constructed of clauses and commas bring one emotional description to my mind: frantic.

 

[James]

Time, do you read the SMH on Saturdays? They have an occasional series on the worst opening sentence in a novel, highly entertaining.

I laughed out loud at those sentences you posted, truly dire writing. You can see what she's trying to say, but boy oh boy she really doesn't know how to sell it.

 

[time]

Okay, now we're getting somewhere.

More examples, please.

 

[P5-133XL]

To all you writing critics, read this. I wrote it in the early 80's and it is what I believe is the best writing I've ever done. At the time it was very hard for me to read, but after a few decades... Critique away.

WHERE HAS ALL THE HAPPINESS GONE


Dying is not much fun for spectators. Each must remember Jack as he once was. He was a happy man, a strong man, a caring man, a common man, a man with strong convictions and loudly voiced opinions easily ignited into argument. I remember him around every Christmas, every birthday, and every Saturday to share in our lives. Jack was a believer in THE FAMILY and being so far removed from his homeland of Saskatoon, we became his. It mattered not that we're only distantly related, four generations removed. He protected, disciplined, rewarded, and loved us all: each in his own way as we grew up. Slowly he became older. He retired and his living pace slowed to a crawl. But, still he came and was ever near.

He told me once that he wished that none of us would ever grow old. Inevitably, his lifestyle and age struck their fatal blow. He became ill and no longer did he come on Saturdays. Instead he watched life through his television and living room window. The tables turned as we visited him. He used the phone to listen to the family news and gossip. We all took turns with his grocery shopping and getting his mail. We even did his Christmas shopping and had a small version of our Christmas celebration in his miniature trailer.

I visited Jack today. Three days ago he was moved from the hospital to the nursing home across the street. He has become so weak that he can no longer sit-up in bed without the help that he declines. He truly needs 24hr. nursing care. He has been sucked dry, a shell, a stick figure of what he used to be with nothing but sags of skin where meat used to be. His weight has dropped from a healthy 250+ to less than 100 pounds. He does nothing but complain about his new residence and make futile declarations of his impending return home to his trailer. He can't be convinced to make the slightest effort to exercise thus regain his lost muscle. Offers to supply him with a phone or television set are responded with "Don't bother I wouldn't use them anyway." He doesn't even want his curtains opened to watch the world outside. He complains but does nothing to improve his situation.

He has gone into a waiting mode ?? Waiting to die. God-speed.

 

[The Grammar Police]

Hmmmm... Let's try that again, shall we?

The little cottage in which I am staying looks as though it was planted here between the hills; as indeed all of them do, for they are as much a part of the countryside as the ploughed potato fields and the turf bogs - from which, incidentally, as I am sitting here writing to you, the smell of the smoke from the turf fire is drifting in under the door, along with the music of Roisin Dubh (which the man of the house is playing on some kind of old stringed instrument that sounds almost like a mandolin) both of which fill me with such a sense of how much I, and all of us, have missed by not being more familiar with these parts of Ireland.

That is still not quite gramatical, but it is a good deal closer. Some notes on my corrections:

(1) "replace "looks like" with "looks as though". Could be regarded as a matter of taste, but I do not think there is too much doubt that the use of "looks like" in the figurative sense is poor English. In the literal sense, of course, it is perfectly acceptable. (For example: "the little cottage looks like Windsor Castle" is fine, because here we are referring to the objective likeness between the cottage and the castle - perhaps it has a crenelated stone wall or some such - but we should say "that little cottage looks as though it was planted here" because now we are entering the realm of fantasy. A small point perhaps, but good English is composed of thousands of small points that add up incrementally.

(2) The original comma after "hills" is wrong. My semi-colon is hardly any better. A dash would do, but the twisted structure of the sentence is such that achieving clarity is not really posssible. Her fundamental problem is that she inserts parenthetical clauses (which in itself is fine) but then takes off in fresh directions from them. This means the beginning of her parenthetical clause has a different role than the end of it, and means that it is not possible to properly punctuate the sentence. While one of the parenthetical marks would be best here - in order of prefference, a comma, a dash or an opening bracket - the subsiduary clause ("which, incidentally ...") does not allow this. Really, the only correct answer is to recast the entire sentence.

(3) The missing "from" in the phrase "... the turf bogs, which, incidentally, as I am sitting here ..." is a gross error and needs no explanation.

(4) The inserted brackets replace a parenthetical pair of commas. There is nothing at all wrong with using commas for this purpose in a well-constructed sentence - indeed, as the lightest punctuation mark of all, the comma is generally to be preffered over other marks - but one can only use commas as parenthesis when there is no risk of confusion between the two parenthetical commas and any other commas that the sentence happens to require. This convoluted and ill thought-out sentence provides an excellent example of this confusion.

(5) Toward the end she writes "... fill me with a sense of how I, and all of us have missed by ..." If the error is not immediately obvious, simply remove the parenthetical phrase "and all of us" to see it: "fill me with a sense of how I have missed by ..." is nonsense. One is left to guess at her meaning. Hence my inserted "much", which may or may not reflect her purpose but is as good a guess as any.


(6) The parenthetical phrase in that same passage, "and all of us", is not parenthesised: she starts with a parenthetical comma, but fails to close the phrase with a matching one - probably because, having begun by violating a generous fistful of the rules of English, she has then sprinkled numerous commas through the sentence at various ill-chosen places in the vague hope that this will do something to resusitate a terminally ill sentence, and she thus feels uncomfortable with the thought of adding still another one.

In summary, this is a sentence that I cannot turn into English without a comprehensive re-write - though I have at least managed to make it a good deal closer than it was. I gather that this illiterate gushing was actually published in a book. That this was written does not surprise me. That it somehow made its way past the editorial table and into print astonishes me.

 

[Cliptin]

I'll give it a shot as editor:

The little cottage in which I am staying looks like it was planted here between the hills, as indeed all of them do. [del]for[/del] They are as much a part of the countryside as the ploughed potato fields and the turf bogs. [del]which, incidentally, as[/del] I am sitting here writing to you [del]the[/del] and smelling of the smoke from the turf fire. The smoke is drifting in under the door, along with the music of Roisin Dubh, which the man of the house is playing on some kind of old stringed instrument that sounds almost like a mandolin. [del]both of which[/del] The music and smoke fill me with such a sense of how I, and all of us have missed out by not being more familiar with these parts of Ireland.

 

[The Grammar Police]

A vast improvement, Cliptin.

 

[Pradeep]

“Did you hear that one about the woman in the airliner when all the engines failed?”

“There these passengers all are, facing certain death and wondering how to go about it, and the first one to crack is this woman, you see. She goes to the front. She tears off all her clothes and throws them at the other passengers. She stands there, stark naked, and shouts, ‘Who’s going to make me feel like a woman, one last time before I die?’ Well, there’s this stunned silence, you see, but eventually this Australian stands up in row three and says, ‘I’ll do it’. And he tears off all his clothes, too, throws them at her, and says, ‘Wash these, bitch’.”

 

[The Grammar Police]

Her second passage is much better. It would be stretching things to call ot "good English" but it is at least English of a fashion. I'll assume that, for the purposes of the exercise, splitting it into two or three sentences (which is what it actually needs) is forbidden, and restrict myself to improving her punctuation so as to make it easier to read.

The song was 'When I Am With You', and listening to Colin singing it, Rosaleen couldn't help but be impressed by the deep quality of his voice; she could tell that the others felt the same way by the silent attitudes being communicated towards Billy (the m.c.) in that the singer hadn't been oversold; she even felt a smile on her lips at Billy's own response - for his expression was heavy with complacency, which not only said that he agreed with their opinion, but that it tended to back up his own good judgement; that he knew before they did exactly how good the singer was going to be.

(1) Replaced ", and" with a semi-colon. Most writers would use a full stop here, but the semi-colon is better.

(2) Replaced the parenthetical commas around "the m.c." with brackets. There was nothing inherently wrong with the commas but in the context of a long, comma-rich sentence, a more competent writer would spare a thought for her readers (if such low-quality writing can be assumed to have any readers, that is) and clarify the sense of the parenthetical phrase by using a different mark to set it off from the surrounding text. One assumes that she has chosen to use commas on the theory that writing filled with dashes and brackets is intimidating and difficult to read. This can often be true - however the difficulty in reading such writing is not caused by the more visible nature of the heavier punctuation, but by the structure of the sentence itself. If one intends to use a complex sentence structure (something that she seems completely addicted to) then it is absolutely vital to help the reader navigate his way through the labrinth with the clearest, most helpful signposts possible - i.e., colons, semi-colons, dashes and brackets should be used liberally. It is a gross mistake to think that by substituting light-duty punctuation marks for heavy, one can turn a forbiddingly complex sentence into easy reading. She mistakes first-glance visual appearance for reality.

(3) Replaced ", and" with a semi-colon. This time, a full stop is clearly the best option, and I've contented myself with the semi-colon purely because my self-imposed rules do not permit me to break the sentence. If she really wants to use that succession of "and"s for dramatic stream-of-consciousness effect, she would do far better to maintain proper sentence structures and, instead, commit the very small sin of beginning some of her follow-on sentence with a preposition. For example: "... the singer hadn't been oversold. And she even felt a smile on her lips ..."

(4) Replaced a comma with a dash to deliniate the phrases which join at "Billy's own response, for his expression was". According to taste, a colon could be used here instead. It is acceptable to use a comma to deliniate an afterthought to a sentence, but only when the division of sentence and afterthought is obvious, and when the afterthought itself is short enough and simple enough to need no punctuation of its own. In this instance, the afterthought component of the sentence has no less than four seperate phrases - far too heavy a burden for a simple, honest comma to bear.

(5) Another obviously overburdened comma replaced by a semi-colon.

(6) Inserted "that", for reasons which should also be obvious.

(7) Removed the surperflous and confusing comma at "he knew before they did, exactly how good the singer was going to be.

Still, despite this litany of errors, the second passage was actually readable - something one could never say about the first passage.

PS: should "m.c." be in lower case? I would have capitalised it, myself.

 

[Dozer]

Okay, how 'bout this:

"The little cottage I’m staying in looks like it was planted between the hills, as well as the other dwellings around it. They are as much a part of the countryside as the ploughed potato fields and the turf bogs. I can smell the scent of turf fire under the door, and I can hear the music of Roisin Dubh being played by the man of the house on an old stringed instrument that sounds almost like a mandolin. This atmosphere makes me realize how much we have missed by not being more familiar with these parts of Ireland."

Here's an interesting article (I especially like the highlighted portions):

Bulwer-Lytton Contest Article

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the text of the Bulwer-Lytton bad writing contest that gave me the idea for a unit in my creative writing class.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the Oregonian, May 17, 1984, B3
SAN JOSE, Calif. - The third annual competition to see who can write the worst possible opening sentence for a novel has produced entries even more deplorable than those last year, contest judges at San Jose State University say.

"There must be a lot of aspiring terrible writers out there," said Scott Rice, a professor of English at San Jose State. "This year we have some wonderfully terrible sentences."

The winning sentence was composed by Steve Garman, city manager of Pensacola, Fla., who wrote: "The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of the warrior-chief Beast, with his barbarian tribe now stacking wood at her nubile feet, when the strong clear voice of the poetic and heroic Handsomas roared, 'Flick your Bic, crisp that chick, and you'll feel my steel through your last meal.' "

For that, Garman will be awarded a word processor.

The runner-up, Joan C. Gilliam of Houston, will be awarded a 30-volume set of the complete works of Sir Edward Bulwer-Lyton, a minor Victorian novelist noted for the opening line of his novel "Paul Clifford" which began, "It was a dark and stormy night...."

Gilliam wrote: "I had left the barbecue quite hurriedly with sketchy directions to the ladies room 'out back,' and now faced a black cow wearing one red earring standing beneath an ill windmill, bladeless and bent from years of prevailing winds, as he watches me with bovine detachment, my heels sunk arch-deep into the mire... I hate the country!"

Garman, who was awarded dishonorable mention last year for an entry of what he termed "some astonishingly bad writing," said he had entered four sentences in this year's competition and that the winning sentence did not take too long to compose. "It's really rather a quick process," he said. "The ones that I thought were the best didn't take much time or effort."

The bad writing competition, for which the English Department at San Jose State has received national recognition, was organized by Rice to provide an outlet for writers who could not normally be able to get anything published. The sentences were divided into 16 categories, including historical romance, plain brown wrapper, horror, murder mystery, and modern romance.

"If you put writing in the same category with other interests like softball, golf or chess, there are outlets available for amateurs," said Rice, who has taught advanced writing at San Jose State for 15 years. "In writing there's only room for a handful of good or lucky people."

Rice said that the competition had been named Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest because Bulwer-Lytton "really shows us something of the nature of true badness." His books are "hard to read, his characters are one-dimensional, they are not psychologically interesting and there is a lifeless formality to them," the professor said. What is more, he continued: "His plots are filled with all kinds of coincidences and improbabilities."

The judges did not record the number of entries, but Rice said he believed more than 4,000 amateurs had sent in sentences from all over the country, and also from Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Kenya and Papua, New Guinea. The contestants included a large number of lawyers, and doctors, secretaries, electrical engineers, prison inmates and policeman.

According to Sharon Brown, one of the 14 judges, who is an English lecturer at San Jose State, the winner's sentence had all of the aspects of bad writing that the judges sought. It had anticlimax, wordiness, misplaced modifiers, overblown triteness and parody. "We were looking for examples of people using inspired errors," she said.

The judges took seven hours to wade through the 500 final entries of particularly bad prose and at times the discussions got heated. Rice said that although the contest was called a bad writing contest, it really took some skill to put together some of the sentences. "A craftsman, in order to achieve the required results, has to be in control of his materials," he said.

Perhaps we can have our own contest :lol:

 

[The Grammar Police]

Mark: no critique from me. That is excellent writing: simple, to the point, well structured, neatly crafted, and quite moving.

It doesn't belong in this thread!