The best of the worst

Congratulations are in order to Sue Fondrie, an English professor at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, whose entry has been declared the overall winner of the 29th annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which challenges entrants "to compose truly awful opening sentences for imaginary novels."

Fondrie claimed the grand prize with a mere 26 words, the shortest winner in the contest's history and, at 169 characters, nearly short enough to qualify as a tweet:

"Cheryl's mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine," Fondrie wrote, "chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories."

However, of all the announced winners and runners up (there were nearly a dozen categories), my personal favorite was cobbled together by Mike Mayfield of Austin, TX, who claimed second place in the Adventure division:

Sensing somehow a scudding lay in the offing, Skipper Bob tallied his tasks:  reef the mains'l, mizzen, and jib, strike and brail the fores'l, mizzen stays'l and baggywrinkles, bowse the halyards, mainsheets, jacklines and vangs, turtle and belay fast the small cock, flemish the taffrail warps, batten the booby hatch, lay by his sou'wester, and find the bailing bucket.

Check out all the 2011 results here.

DISCLAIMER: Bad writing is only acceptable within protected environments such as this relatively prestigious bad-writing contest, in which it has been crafted intentionally to showcase just how bad writing can be. Bad writing should never be allowed to stand unedited when, as is usually the case, it is put forth earnestly in an attempt to produce good writing.

What's that you say, refrigerator?

An interesting new exhibit opened today at New York's Museum of Modern Art. “Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects" reveals how we, as a modern society, expect the things we make to interact with us, increasingly through words.

From the New York Times T Magazine blog:

[Curators] Antonelli and Carmody make much of the idea that it is no longer enough for an object to look good and work well. Their introductory text states, “As the purpose of design has, in past decades, shifted away from mere utility toward meaning and communication, objects that were once charged only with being elegant and functional now need to have personalities. Thanks to digital technology, these objects even have the tools to communicate through their interfaces, adding a new interactive dimension.” But, as with any object, low-tech or high-tech, the most successful designs in “Talk to Me” are those that actually have something to say.

The secret to eternal life

It's a bit cliched to say that a picture is worth a thousand words (well, that is a cliche), but there is some degree of truth to it. And so when the attempt is made to translate a picture—such as, say, a Chinese character—into one word or even a handful of words, the accuracy of the intended idea can be questionable. But the result can be magical.

I had the good fortune to travel in China last year, and jotted this down in my notes:

Seen, on a sign at the entrance to a hiking park near Yangshuo: The itinerary of Immortal, a list of directives which includes, “It is not to climbing on the bad thunderstorming days.”

It’s the little things that matter. As many people of distinguished age will tell you, the secret to long life really is a series of small insights, day in and day out. You can smoke until you’re 90, eat fatty foods until you’re 100, but… be sure to find the joy in each moment; never turn down a friend or loved one in need; and, no matter what others may want you to do, it is not to climbing on the bad thunderstorming days.



Every word, a fugitive

While kicking around ideas to post on this Word Journal, I remembered an article I wrote a few years ago for Humanities magazine—perhaps because the piece ran under the headline Words, Words, Words. It was the story of a new scholarly edition of Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language, considered the first authoritative work of its kind when it was initially printed in 1755. That's not very long ago, in the history of the English language. It's amazing to think that before then, there wasn't one single source for English speakers to consult (whereas Spanish and French speakers had long had such books, a shameful fact to the British publishers who recruited Johnson). Forget dictionary.com. There wasn't even a dictionary.

The most interesting irony is that the act of creating an authoritative word glossary only revealed the democratic, evolutionary nature of the language. Words don't respond well to authority. To quote my own article, if I may:

By his own admission, Johnson set out to "fix" the language, to stabilize it, and in so doing, save it from those who would erode it by using it--a mission in line with "Dr. Johnson's" rigid reputation. "People still like to think of Johnson as a dictator of language," DeMaria says. "And in the dictionary, you can point to evidence of that." For example, in a comparison of the words "later" and "latter," Johnson declares that the, well, latter of the two is "only used by barbarians."

Yet in the end (that is to say, in the Preface), Johnson came to respect the common usage of words, admitting that language can no more be fixed than "the image of a grove in a rainstorm." He resigned himself, in this case not unhappily, to the task of "registering" the language, capturing it as it was. "He was quite struck with the variety, the illusiveness, and the liquidity of language, its fugitive qualities," DeMaria explains.

Samuel Johnson, WTF?Fugitive qualities, eh? Sometimes, it seems like more and more words are going into hiding ("k, c u there, ttyl!"). For those of us who work with words (and especially weirdos like me who insist on proper spelling and punctuation even in a casual email--an email!), it can be a bit frustrating. But it isn't just barbarians who are to blame texting and tweeting, and even 140 characters are plenty when used properly. Our language is an everyday glimpse of who we are and who we are becoming ("image of a grove in a rainstorm," meet UrbanDictionary.com). It was nice to be reminded that even this guy (right) got with the times (albeit the mid-18th century) and learned to love—and respect—the language as we know it, and as we use it.

Words do matter.

Still think they don't? Have a look at this bit of "chutzpah." We are politically neutral here at the Word Journal, but we will remain vigilant in defense of words, regardless of who may be abusing them...