What is the longest and least coherent sentence ever written and published in English?
Length and meaning are separate matters and there's no convenient formula that can connect them. Five words by Martin Amis versus 225 words by Tracy Emin? Who can say which is worst? The decision is visceral - or, in plain speech, worthless.
But what the hell. Hold your nose and dive right in.
Here is my (re)submission:
The ideal of modern architecture being an articulated mechanical adequacy that not only frees human phenomena from robotism of inevitable survival functions; but also, and moreover, tends towards progressive material unselfconsciousness of control, of such adequate mechanics of universal life intercourse, as to bring into high relief the residuary "mental", or "time", awareness of only the eternally ex-static: harmonic, phenomena - thus bespeaking, via the contemporarily, and embryonically, envisioned universal architecture (i.e., radionic-time-growth composition, progressively complementary to, and synchronizable with, a comprehensive life concept, scientifically arrived at, and harmoniously sustained), an eventual elimination of the "time" phenomena (a "past" and "future" based on auto-suggestive procrastinating fallacial concept of the "would-be static entrenchment of the selfish ego") which "time" phenomena blinds the ego to the infinity of the eternal "now", visible only through the universally concerned intellectual optics of integrity.
That sentence was written by Richard Buckminster Fuller, the father of geodesy. It was published in T-Square magazine in February 1932. That was Buckie's big year, the year he finally got moving and made his mark, so there must be something meaningful somewhere in there. But who can spot it?
Not me. It's crap. It means nothing.
Next!
Mickwick,
the universally concerned intellectual optic of integrity
Length and meaning are separate matters and there's no convenient formula that can connect them. Five words by Martin Amis versus 225 words by Tracy Emin? Who can say which is worst? The decision is visceral - or, in plain speech, worthless.
But what the hell. Hold your nose and dive right in.
Here is my (re)submission:
The ideal of modern architecture being an articulated mechanical adequacy that not only frees human phenomena from robotism of inevitable survival functions; but also, and moreover, tends towards progressive material unselfconsciousness of control, of such adequate mechanics of universal life intercourse, as to bring into high relief the residuary "mental", or "time", awareness of only the eternally ex-static: harmonic, phenomena - thus bespeaking, via the contemporarily, and embryonically, envisioned universal architecture (i.e., radionic-time-growth composition, progressively complementary to, and synchronizable with, a comprehensive life concept, scientifically arrived at, and harmoniously sustained), an eventual elimination of the "time" phenomena (a "past" and "future" based on auto-suggestive procrastinating fallacial concept of the "would-be static entrenchment of the selfish ego") which "time" phenomena blinds the ego to the infinity of the eternal "now", visible only through the universally concerned intellectual optics of integrity.
That sentence was written by Richard Buckminster Fuller, the father of geodesy. It was published in T-Square magazine in February 1932. That was Buckie's big year, the year he finally got moving and made his mark, so there must be something meaningful somewhere in there. But who can spot it?
Not me. It's crap. It means nothing.
Next!
Mickwick,
the universally concerned intellectual optic of integrity
Here is my (re)submission: The ideal of modern architecture being an articulated mechanical adequacy that not only frees human phenomena ... blinds the ego to the infinity of the eternal "now", visible only through the universally concerned intellectual optics of integrity.
Are you sure about that semi-colon in the third line?
PB
Thus spake Mickwick:
Where's Charles when he's needed? James Joyce has a single sentence chapter in one of his high-modernist books ( Ulysses or Finnegans Wake ). It goes on for pages.
Simon R. Hughes
What is the longest and least coherent sentence ever written and published in English? Length and meaning are separate matters ... must be something meaningful somewhere in there. But who can spot it? Not me. It's crap. It means nothing. Next!
Where's Charles when he's needed? James Joyce has a single sentence chapter in one of his high-modernist books ( Ulysses or Finnegans Wake ). It goes on for pages.
Simon R. Hughes
Students: Are you brave enough to let our tutors analyse your pronunciation?
The ideal of modern architecture being an articulated mechanical adequacy ... robotism of inevitable survival functions; but also, and moreover, tends
Are you sure about that semi-colon in the third line?
Yep!
The whole thing is a completely accurate transcription of the way the Buckie article/manifesto appears in Programmes and manifestoes (sic) on 20th-century architecture by Ulrich Conrads.
Mickwick,
the universally concerned intellectual optic of integrity
Thus spake Mickwick:
What is the longest and least coherent sentence ever written and published in English?
...
Not me. It's crap. It means nothing. Next!
Where's Charles when he's needed? James Joyce has a single sentence chapter in one of his high-modernist books ( Ulysses or Finnegans Wake ). It goes on for pages.
Molly's soliloquy (odd: I think it is the first time I ever typed or wrote the word) at the end of "Ulysses". But it's replete with meaning, and a glorious piece of writing. Without a dodgy semi-colon.
And I say that as somebody who is not particularly enamoured of Joyce's work.
Charles may come along to sing a paean of praise more in keeping with Joyce's place in the divine order. Yes I say yes he will yes.
PB
Mickwick defended his transcription:
That may be, but how does Conrads's transcription relate to what Fuller actually wrote? For an American of the 1930s to put commas to the right of closing quotes would have been strange, and possibly unheard-of.
The whole thing is a completely accurate transcription of the way the Buckie article/manifesto appears in Programmes and manifestoes (sic) on 20th-century architecture by Ulrich Conrads.
That may be, but how does Conrads's transcription relate to what Fuller actually wrote? For an American of the 1930s to put commas to the right of closing quotes would have been strange, and possibly unheard-of.
Students: We have free audio pronunciation exercises.
Are you sure about that semi-colon in the third line?
Yep! The whole thing is a completely accurate transcription of the way the Buckie article/manifesto appears in Programmes and manifestoes (sic) on 20th-century architecture by Ulrich Conrads.
Then I conclude that it is not a sentence, and ineligible for the prize.
Next!
PB
The whole thing is a completely accurate transcription of the ... and manifestoes (sic) on 20th-century architecture by Ulrich Conrads.
Then I conclude that it is not a sentence, and ineligible for the prize. Next!
Er .. Er ...
Oh, bugger it, you know what I mean. The longest bit of *** ever contained to the left of a single full-stop.
How's that? Not as an entry, as a definition?
Mickwick,
the universally concerned intellectual optic of integrity
Mickwick defended his transcription:
The whole thing is a completely accurate transcription of the ... and manifestoes (sic) on 20th-century architecture by Ulrich Conrads.
That may be, but how does Conrads's transcription relate to what Fuller actually wrote? For an American of the 1930s to put commas to the right of closing quotes would have been strange, and possibly unheard-of.
OK, fair point.
So let's forget punctuation. (There are three or four questionable punctuation marks in my version of the text.) Punctuate the text in any way you please. Does that help elucidate Fuller's meaning? Or any other meaning whatsoever?
I doubt it. However punctuated, it's Pseud's Corner. It's embarrassing. It's crap.
Next!
Mickwick,
the universally concerned intellectual optic of integrity
Teachers: We supply a list of EFL job vacancies
Show more