#97020 - 02/27/03 12:24 AM
Bulwer-Lytton Prize winners
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 04/09/00
Posts: 3065
Loc: Jakarta
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I've never been able to see what's actually wrong with "It was a dark and stormy night." myself, but be that as it may, here, copied from another board I frequent, are this year's winners of the Bulwer-Lytton prize for worst opening sentence of a novel:
| >
| > 10) "As a scientist, Throckmorton knew that if he were ever to
| > break wind in the echo chamber he would never hear the end of it."
| >
| > 9) "Just beyond the Narrows the river widens."
| >
| > 8) "With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a
| > tanned, unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick brown hair,
| deep
| > azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, perfect teeth that
| vied
| for
| > competition, and a small straight nose, Marilee had a beauty that
| defied
| > description."
| >
| > 7) "Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as he
| > crept along the East wall: 'Andre creep... Andre creep... Andre
| creep.'"
| >
| > 6) "Stanislaus Smedley, a man always on the cutting edge of
| narcissism,
| was
| > about to give his body and soul to a back alley sex-change surgeon
| > to become the woman he loved."
| >
| > 5) "Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not keep her
| from
| > eeking out a living at a local pet store."
| >
| > 4) "Stanley looked quite bored and somewhat detached, but then
| penguins
| > often do."
| >
| > 3) "Like an over-ripe beefsteak tomato rimmed with cottage cheese,
| > the corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the hotel floor."
| >
| > 2) "Mike Hardware was the kind of private eye who didn't know the
| > meaning of the word 'fear'; a man who could laugh in the face of
| danger
| and
| > spit in the eye of death -- in short, a moron with suicidal
| tendencies."
| >
| > AND THE WINNER IS...
| >
| > 1) "The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness, crept
| > along the greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed through the
| castle
| > window, revealing the pillaged princess, hand at throat, crown
| asunder,
| > gaping in frenzied horror at the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside
| her,
| > disbelieving the magnitude of the frog's deception, screaming madly,
| 'You
| > lied!'"
Bingley
_________________________
Bingley
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#97021 - 02/27/03 10:54 AM
Re: Bulwer-Lytton Prize winners
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 01/18/01
Posts: 13858
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Yes, Bingley. Those do make Bulwer-Lytton look good. I think jealousy is principal reason
for dissing him.
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#97023 - 02/28/03 09:17 AM
Re: Bulwer-Lytton Prize winners
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 01/18/01
Posts: 13858
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Gotta rise outa you, didn't I?
"Anaphorostic" sounds like a coinage for a waterproof shoe,etc.
But for "phoros" only meaning I could find was:
1.tribute, esp. the annual tax levied upon houses,
lands, and persons
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#97026 - 03/01/03 11:51 AM
Re: Araphorostic aside
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old hand
Registered: 12/20/00
Posts: 1055
Loc: Berlin
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>They are merely joke-ettes, puns, unto themselves Yeah, I kept wondering whether or not a novel would, or could follow these oneliners, and if so, whether anyone might actually read them. Perhaps the judges were getting confused between the 'wittiest' and the 'worst' - I mean you gotta ask yourself, how does one get elected to judge such a competition anyway? Regardless of the individual artistic motivation of each author though  , I think they're a pretty funny dumb laugh.
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#97027 - 03/01/03 01:32 PM
Re: Araphorostic aside
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Pooh-Bah
Registered: 01/05/01
Posts: 1814
Loc: Spam Factory
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In reply to:
"Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not keep her from eeking out a living at a local pet store."
This sounds more like a Tom Swifty to me.
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#97028 - 03/01/03 03:58 PM
Is this link a YART? Can a link be a YART?
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 06/11/01
Posts: 2636
Loc: Caribbean
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#97029 - 03/01/03 11:36 PM
Re: Araphorostic aside
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old hand
Registered: 07/03/00
Posts: 1094
Loc: Cincinnati & Loveland, Ohio, U...
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I have to say I'm pretty disappointed by these. They seem so silly and not at all in the great Bulwer-Lytton spirit. They are merely joke-ettes, puns, unto themselves. The last one sounds familiar, but I don't think the rest are authentically from the contest. For one, they're too short. For two, this was obviously from an e-mail, most likely and erroneous joke one at that. For three, the contest always has a ton of different categories, lot just a simple list like that. And for four, the official website for the contest: http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/ doesn't have anything for 2003 yet.
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