Worst Opening Sentences of 2022 • Hacker News Board

Re: Worst Opening Sentences of 2022

#141

Post by rpastuszak » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 10:55 AM UTC

rubyron wrote: post #71

> All I can say is that I have never been so insulted (even by the likes of my moronic sister (who seems to delight in making me uncomfortable (and she is so good at it, knowing just how to push my buttons (which I think is a skill that all siblings possess to some extent (which I believe proves some sort of genetic link (despite the fact that I really enjoyed genetics in school (relating on so many levels to Gregor…

Hehe honestly this is what often happens when I do journaling with my stream of consciousness text editor: https://enso.sonnet.io

Hard to keep track of the parentheses though as the text disappears after 3-4 lines.

I was also experimenting briefly with a graph-based text editor where o could keep my tangents in check but still have some overall structure.

Re: Worst Opening Sentences of 2022

#142

Post by oynqr » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 10:56 AM UTC

BMc2020 wrote: post #119

Bafld the Barbarian was sore perplexed when he picked up the sword and it spoke to him, thus: "I see thou art sore perplexed. I'm sword of Bafld myself."

That would make for a great sitcom. I can already hear the laugh track.

Re: Worst Opening Sentences of 2022

#143

Post by amelius » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 2:05 PM UTC

rubyron wrote: post #71

> All I can say is that I have never been so insulted (even by the likes of my moronic sister (who seems to delight in making me uncomfortable (and she is so good at it, knowing just how to push my buttons (which I think is a skill that all siblings possess to some extent (which I believe proves some sort of genetic link (despite the fact that I really enjoyed genetics in school (relating on so many levels to Gregor…

All the parentheses close at the same point, though.

Re: Worst Opening Sentences of 2022

#144

Post by jvandonsel » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 2:47 PM UTC

These winners are always too long-winded. “Brevity is the soul of wit”.

The alternative is the much funnier Lyttle Lytton Contest: http://adamcadre.ac/lyttle.html

Re: Worst Opening Sentences of 2022

#145

Post by spicybright » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 3:40 PM UTC

sph wrote: post #128

mnky9800n wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do this to get it out, then I rewrite it to take all the parentheticals out.

Those parentheticals can be rewritten with commas, which sent me on an exploratory tangent trying to see if one could use commas instead of parens in Lisp.

That's interesting. What did you find?

Re: Worst Opening Sentences of 2022

#146

Post by KMag » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:16 PM UTC

sph wrote: post #128

mnky9800n wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do this to get it out, then I rewrite it to take all the parentheticals out.

Those parentheticals can be rewritten with commas, which sent me on an exploratory tangent trying to see if one could use commas instead of parens in Lisp.

But several layers of parentheticals delimited by commas are ambiguous to parse in the general case.

Re: Worst Opening Sentences of 2022

#147

Post by KMag » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:22 PM UTC

rubyron wrote: post #71

> All I can say is that I have never been so insulted (even by the likes of my moronic sister (who seems to delight in making me uncomfortable (and she is so good at it, knowing just how to push my buttons (which I think is a skill that all siblings possess to some extent (which I believe proves some sort of genetic link (despite the fact that I really enjoyed genetics in school (relating on so many levels to Gregor…

Is use of deeply nested parentheticals really a sign of ADD? Certainly, nesting the parentheticals deep enough to overflow your mental context stack will lead to losing the plot. However, if both you and your intended listener have the capacity to keep all of the contexts in memory, it wouldn't seem to cause problems.

Re: Worst Opening Sentences of 2022

#148

Post by kaajoo » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 5:15 PM UTC

The heat blanketed the small village in much the same way a body bag blankets a murder victim, except that a body bag is usually black, which the heat wasn’t, as heat is colorless, and the village wasn’t dead, which a murder victim usually is.

Re: Worst Opening Sentences of 2022

#149

Post by noja » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 7:16 PM UTC

The worse opening sentences of what? Books? Are they named anywhere?

Edit: the books don't exist: 'Since 1982 the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest has challenged participants to write an atrocious opening sentence to the worst novel never written. Our whimsical literary competition honors Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1830 novel Paul Clifford begins with "It was a dark and stormy night."'

Re: Worst Opening Sentences of 2022

#150

Post by sph » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 11:35 PM UTC

spicybright wrote: post #145

sph wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those parentheticals can be rewritten with commas, which sent me on an exploratory tangent trying to see if one could use commas instead of parens in Lisp.

That's interesting. What did you find?

Like a sibling commenter said, commas are not enough to be unambiguous. Ambiguity is fine in prose, because we can resolve it from context, but computers need something clear and well structured.