New Post
Search
Help[Opinions] Tiffany and Ethel
One of the entrants in this year's Bulwer-Lytton bad writing contest sums up what this list is (sometimes) all about:
As Ethel arranged the list of company phone numbers under her clear plastic desk cover, perfectly aligning the lower right corner of the list with the lower right corner of the plastic, then swiveled her chair to file one more inter-office memorandum on trimming the budget, she considered how different her life might have been if her parents had named her Tiffany.
As Ethel arranged the list of company phone numbers under her clear plastic desk cover, perfectly aligning the lower right corner of the list with the lower right corner of the plastic, then swiveled her chair to file one more inter-office memorandum on trimming the budget, she considered how different her life might have been if her parents had named her Tiffany.
Archived Thread - replies disabled
1
Replies
It seems that the contestants in the Bulwer-Lytton contest always equate "worst opening sentence" with "longest possible opening sentence", as if the fact that an opening sentence is long automatically makes its content bad. For instance, if this had been written:
Ethel arranged the list of company phone numbers under her clear plastic desk cover. She perfectly aligned the lower right corner of the list with the lower right corner of the plastic. Swiveling in her chair to file one more inter-office memorandum (trimming the budget, again), she considered how different her life might have been if her parents had named her Tiffany.
That's really not that bad. I think that it would actually make me want to read more. It would make me want to know more, which is really what an opening paragraph should do. Is Ethel OCD? Is that why she must have the corners aligned? Is she bored with her dry office job? Does she long for something more exciting in her life? Is she, in spite of the fact that she has an old-fashioned, ugly name, really a young, attractive woman? And what problems does she have in her life that she thinks she can blame on her name? Can her name really be blamed for these problems? Does she resent her parents for her name? And, if so, is this really an excuse for other, more important things that she blames them for?
See? Really not that bad, at all. It's just that putting all of it into one long, run on sentence lends it an air of the ridiculous, when the content is really not ridiculous. It seems as if this is what most of the contestants do, and it's a pretty lazy way of trying to craft a bad opening sentence.
Well, this strays far from the subject of names. It does address the theory that a bad name can badly affect one's life, but I don't know that that theory has any validity at all.
Does anyone think that Ethel and Tiffany would make a cute sibset?
Ethel arranged the list of company phone numbers under her clear plastic desk cover. She perfectly aligned the lower right corner of the list with the lower right corner of the plastic. Swiveling in her chair to file one more inter-office memorandum (trimming the budget, again), she considered how different her life might have been if her parents had named her Tiffany.
That's really not that bad. I think that it would actually make me want to read more. It would make me want to know more, which is really what an opening paragraph should do. Is Ethel OCD? Is that why she must have the corners aligned? Is she bored with her dry office job? Does she long for something more exciting in her life? Is she, in spite of the fact that she has an old-fashioned, ugly name, really a young, attractive woman? And what problems does she have in her life that she thinks she can blame on her name? Can her name really be blamed for these problems? Does she resent her parents for her name? And, if so, is this really an excuse for other, more important things that she blames them for?
See? Really not that bad, at all. It's just that putting all of it into one long, run on sentence lends it an air of the ridiculous, when the content is really not ridiculous. It seems as if this is what most of the contestants do, and it's a pretty lazy way of trying to craft a bad opening sentence.
Well, this strays far from the subject of names. It does address the theory that a bad name can badly affect one's life, but I don't know that that theory has any validity at all.
Does anyone think that Ethel and Tiffany would make a cute sibset?
1
I can't see anyone naming their daughters Ethel and Tiffany.
My Mother had a cousin named Ethel,although I never knew her. So it must have been an acceptable name at one time.
I learned, here on BtN, that Tiffany was a name sometimes given(long ago!)to girls born on January 6th, which is Epiphany in the church calender. (In the same spirit as girls born on Christmas being named Noelle, Noelline, or some such varient.)
Which makes me like the name.
My Mother had a cousin named Ethel,although I never knew her. So it must have been an acceptable name at one time.
I learned, here on BtN, that Tiffany was a name sometimes given(long ago!)to girls born on January 6th, which is Epiphany in the church calender. (In the same spirit as girls born on Christmas being named Noelle, Noelline, or some such varient.)
Which makes me like the name.
1
That's silly.
I love Ethel.
I love Ethel.
1