It was a dark and stormy night ...

2008, August 9 - 14:05 — Jennifer

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

Confession: I never thought "It was a dark and stormy night" was all that bad, as Victorian opening lines go.

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2008, August 9 - 14:53 — Jadagul

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

Jennifer: you may or may not know this, but the part that makes it so bad is that that's not the whole sentence. The full quotation:

Edward George Bulwer-Lytton in Paul Clifford 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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2008, August 9 - 16:32 — Jennifer

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

Oh. Okay. THAT sucks.

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2008, August 9 - 16:37 — Jadagul

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

I think it's the aside, "(for it is in London that our scene lies)," that really does it for me. I mean, really, was there no more elegant way to introduce that information? You couldn't have said, "gust of wind which swept up the London streets"?

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2008, August 9 - 16:43 — Jennifer

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

Of course, to play devil's advocate, Victorian prose in general was much wordier than the style nowadays. You could probably rewrite any Victorian novel for modern audiences with only half as many words, and not lose a single detail in the translation.

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2008, August 9 - 17:10 — Jadagul

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

Yeah, and I actually like that in a lot of circumstances. The language can sometimes be wonderfully vivid and colorful; the first sentence of A Tale of Two Cities is equally long, but absolutely gorgeous. But this sentence isn't just long; it's bad. Admittedly, I don't think it quite rises to the level of badness that justifies its role as "worst first sentence EVAR," but it is bad. And I think the part of the sentence that most sticks out to me is that parenthetical. Not just because it's long, or because it's parenthetical, but because it seems forced in and unconnected with the rest of the sentence. The structure makes it look like it should have something to do with the rest of the sentence, but it really doesn't, and that makes it sound awkward and unpleasant.

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2008, August 9 - 18:41 — Jennifer

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

The entire parenthetical could simply have been replaced by the words "of London," and it would sound MUCH better.

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2008, August 9 - 22:33 — Sandy

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

Jadagul wrote:

A Tale of Two Cities

Yes, but until you read the original, A Sale of Two Titties by Charles Dikkens, the well-known Dutch author, you haven't experienced the full tumescence of the prose.

Sorry.

I really liked "She had the kind of body that made a man want to have sex with her."

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2008, August 9 - 23:48 — D.A. Ridgely

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

By way of providing context, you might want to peruse some of the prior year winners here.

One of my favorites:

Wm. W. "Buddy" Ocheltree, Port Townsend, Washington (1993 Winner) wrote:

She wasn't really my type, a hard-looking but untalented reporter from the local cat box liner, but the first second that the third-rate representative of the fourth estate cracked open a new fifth of old Scotch, my sixth sense said seventh heaven was as close as an eighth note from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, so, nervous as a tenth grader drowning in eleventh-hour cramming for a physics exam, I swept her into my longing arms, and, humming "The Twelfth of Never," I got lucky on Friday the thirteenth.

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2008, August 10 - 02:25 — Ellie

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

My favorite has always been this Dishonorable Mention from 2003:

Karen Clark, Barkers Creek, Victoria, Australia wrote:

Had Dorothy known Duncan was a psychopath who would seduce, then brutally murder her, and that her best friend Dana, a forensic pathologist would investigate her death and also fall in love with him, but be saved just in time by Dwayne, her much maligned colleague, perhaps she wouldn't have bought him that Screwdriver.

I also love the one that won the Grand Panjandrum's Special Award this year, but I'm not going to quote it, because I think it's much funnier if you read it in the context of the page.

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2008, August 11 - 19:35 — Stevo Darkly

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

I entered this contest years and years and years ago. It went something like this:

Quote:

As the paddle-wheeler Mary Kay churned her way down the Mississippi River toward New Orleans with a hold full of cosmetics, the canny captain -- sensing the onset of a storm that would be a mortal danger to any ship out of port or to any unsecured cargo -- ordered his crew to "batten rouge."

(I think I was aiming for the "vile pun" category.)

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2008, August 11 - 20:13 — Aresen

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

Sometimes it's not the first sentence that sucks.

Herman Melville wrote:

Call me Ishmael.

Its the remaining 459 pages¹ that do.

_{1. Norton Critical Edition, W.W. NORTON & COMPANY, INC. New York, NY, 1967.}

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2008, August 11 - 20:25 — Ali

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

Aresen wrote:

_{1. Norton Critical Edition, W.W. NORTON & COMPANY, INC. New York, NY, 1967.}

This is NOT how IEEE, AIAA, ASME et al. intend you to cite your references.

EDIT: I am bored and I am tired with a freaking deadline at midnight.

EDIT 2: And Mathematica doesn't want to compute.

EDIT 3: And my co-author is nowhere to be found.

EDIT 4: And the submission wbsite has already crashed.

EDIT 5: Did I mention that I am bored and tired?

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2008, August 11 - 20:44 — Aresen

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

Ali wrote:

Aresen wrote:
_{1. Norton Critical Edition, W.W. NORTON & COMPANY, INC. New York, NY, 1967.}

This is NOT how IEEE^2. AIAA^3., ASME^4. et al.^5. intend you to cite your references.^6.

EDIT: I am bored and I am tired with a freaking deadline at midnight.^7.

EDIT 2: And Mathematica doesn't want to compute. ^7.

EDIT 3: And my co-author is nowhere to be found.^7.

EDIT 4: And the submission wbsite has already crashed.^7.

EDIT 5: Did I mention that I am bored and tired?^7.

_{2. Piss on them.}

3. Piss on them.

4. Piss on them.

5. And them too.

6. It is the way I was taught when taking English Lit.

7. Sucks.

;P

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2008, August 11 - 21:44 — Ali

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

Aresen wrote:

Ali wrote:
Aresen wrote:
_{1. Norton Critical Edition, W.W. NORTON & COMPANY, INC. New York, NY, 1967.}

This is NOT how IEEE^2. AIAA^3., ASME^4. et al.^5. intend you to cite your references.^6.

EDIT: I am bored and I am tired with a freaking deadline at midnight.^7.

EDIT 2: And Mathematica doesn't want to compute. ^7.

EDIT 3: And my co-author is nowhere to be found.^7.

EDIT 4: And the submission wbsite has already crashed.^7.

EDIT 5: Did I mention that I am bored and tired?^7.

_{2. Piss on them.}

3. Piss on them.

4. Piss on them.

5. And them too.

6. It is the way I was taught when taking English Lit.

7. Sucks.

;P

Freakin' done!

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2008, August 11 - 22:05 — Aresen

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

Ali wrote:

Freakin' done!

Which? Pissing on them or your project?

;)

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2008, August 11 - 22:07 — Ali

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

Aresen wrote:

Ali wrote:
Freakin' done!

Which? Pissing on them or your project?

;)

Both? I did in 24 hours what I was supposed to do in two months. What a procrastinator! But, you know what? I did very well. Good stuff was just submitted. :-)

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2008, August 11 - 22:13 — Aresen

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

Ali wrote:

Both? I did in 24 hours what I was supposed to do in two months. What a procrastinator!

In which case, you need to know about this.

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2008, August 14 - 08:26 — dhex

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

dudes moby dick is the best book about god ever i'm just sayin'.

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2008, August 19 - 12:19 — Sandy

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

God is tedious and over-descriptive?

On second thought, that explains a lot, actually.

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2008, August 19 - 20:14 — D.A. Ridgely

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

Someone once said Wagner's music is better than it sounds. Mutatis mutandis, the same can be said about Moby Dick.

BTW, when it comes to anal retentive citation rules, no profession can hold a candle to the law. I give you the Uniform System of Citations, a.k.a., the Bluebook.

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2008, August 19 - 21:35 — Aresen

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

D.A. Ridgely wrote:

Someone once said Wagner's music is better than it sounds.

I thought it was Twain, but the searches attribute it to Edgar Wilson Nye, saying it was quoted in Twain's autobiography.

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2008, August 23 - 19:45 — Fin Fang Foom 3000

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

D.A. Ridgely wrote:

Someone once said Wagner's music is better than it sounds. Mutatis mutandis, the same can be said about Moby Dick.

BTW, when it comes to anal retentive citation rules, no profession can hold a candle to the law. I give you the Uniform System of Citations, a.k.a., the Bluebook.

This is why I am not a litigator, and why Harvard Law School should be burnt to the ground.

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2008, August 23 - 19:49 — Jennifer

Re: It was a dark and stormy night ...

Wagner's epic Kill The Wabbit was one of the best Warner Brothers soundtracks ever.

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