Is this, or is this not one of the worst sentences you have ever read? No, not the sentence you’ve just read, this one, here, look where I’m pointing, that I’m quoting from today’s Herald AM.
The Leesides took the lead though a Colin O’Brien goal after 33 minutes before shortly into the second-half Shels striker Jason Byrne missed a penalty.
Grammar? Syntax? What?
Journalism is dead.
Not one of the worst – it just went and grabbed that much-coveted first place. And it's probably going to keep it a while, too.
It is undoubtedly, without any danger of contradiction when considered from a semantic perspective and not forgetting about the rules of grammar and so forth or that sticky thing on the curtains, but I digress, the worst sentence ever.
I guess they figured – and rightly – that nobody in their right mind cares enough about rugby to pay attention to the text.
KIDDING. I'm just glad you can't throw things this far! =o)
NM, zackly.
Anne, and you'd know being in the "language business".
Kyknoord, I forgot all about the curtain tie, well pointed out.
Kelly, would it humiliate you totally if I was to say, thats football they were talking about? :lol:
I only read it while doing the Sudoku.
Actually neither sentence strike me as particularly good1 ;)
But put a "1" after "good" and THAT is the making of sentence magic!
I've never seen worse in a mainstream publication. I've seen plenty of scary stuff in technical documents. White Papers, in particular, seem to breed long, nonsensical sentences.
The one you pointed out requires a degree in time travel to get it, I think.
Hey, ouch! Ha – rugby, football, whatever… =o)
Still trying to work it out.
So he scored 33 minutes before shortly into the second half? Does that take half time into account. Cos that's fifteen minutes. But shortly into the second half could be anything from two to ten minutes, and maybe we're talking playing time so half time wouldn't be taken into account so….
He scored at some point in the first half, but it isn't certain exactly when.
My brain hurts.
Really Carl, so maybe if they'd stuck 1 after every second word it would have made that the "very best sentence in the world" :)
Kelly, I suppose you are right. It could have been cricket and it still wouldn't have made that sentence make sense.
Alan, you've gone and made it worse by trying to make sense out of it. Now all our brains hurt.