Come up with the most roundabout way to say ---

Okay, there's no way I can top yours, so I'm not even going to try, but I just wanted to say this is a fun idea for a thread. I'm looking forward to reading some more.

How fun!

"I went to sleep":

"Whence the time to succumb to exhaustion came upon me, stealing consciousness from my every fibre, I did place my body in that position which best calls forth that black void, that small death, sleep; prone and supple upon the firm yet yielding surface ensconced in woven fabric, and beneath a layer that would cocoon the heat of my blood flowing sluggish in slumber; and I commanded that my eyelids yield to the relentless tug which called them to meet, lash to lash, and block sweet light from my weary vision."

Laying it on too thick, am I?

Such a thing is not limited to prose. Some poets think purple gets a pass in the poetic format. So, here is one that is in poetry form, but can also address the purpling of prose:


In the darkness, not one day past
blunt end to me, serendipitous cast
an oak did lie full grooved and etched
impacted sinew thusly stretched
a trestle, hissed in cadence force
the act without, but delayed remorse

Or, put in non-Gongorian roe
I just stubbed my fucking toe

NOTE: Gongorism is considered a deliberately ornamental, meaningless and obscure style. It is reported to originate from the works of the Spanish poet Luis de Gongora y Argote (1561-1627), however, the exaggerations of his imitators (evidently) contributed more to the hits on his reputation than did his own work.

I know that poem! Who wrote it?

too early in the morning for this for me. I may give it a go later on.

While I posed uncased in a generally seated position in the most diminished chamber of my humble abode, I happened to ponder the undergarment nestled within the confines of my trousers between the lowest appendages of my skin vessel and realized that earlier, when the golden orb had first dipped its rosy fingers into the eternal sea beyond my dining hall's triumphant windows and I had just finished consuming a great platter of the spiciest of chilies and upon reclining had allowed a gaseous emanation to escape the lowest of my orifices, I had produced something more than a deep bass, rumbling tone to rival the harmonic interlude of the musical trios entertaining my numerous, inebriated dinner guests...I had also unknowingly created a miniscule amount of mucilaginous, odiferous sludge that upon further inspection had marred the very fibers of my undergarment in a pattern that most resembled the image created when a motorized vehicle acclerates to such a heightened degree that it's rubbery wheels departs with some of its own outer shell and vitiates the roadway seen only in its rear-facing mirrors.

Eww

My-Immortal said:

While I posed uncased in a generally seated position in the most diminished chamber of my humble abode, I happened to ponder the undergarment nestled within the confines of my trousers between the lowest appendages of my skin vessel and realized that earlier, when the golden orb had first dipped its rosy fingers into the eternal sea beyond my dining hall's triumphant windows and I had just finished consuming a great platter of the spiciest of chilies and upon reclining had allowed a gaseous emanation to escape the lowest of my orifices, I had produced something more than a deep bass, rumbling tone to rival the harmonic interlude of the musical trios entertaining my numerous, inebriated dinner guests...I had also unknowingly created a miniscule amount of mucilaginous, odiferous sludge that upon further inspection had marred the very fibers of my undergarment in a pattern that most resembled the image created when a motorized vehicle acclerates to such a heightened degree that it's rubbery wheels departs with some of its own outer shell and vitiates the roadway seen only in its rear-facing mirrors.

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OMG... I'm laughing too hard to come up with anything myself. Good luck trying to top that one!

Alexander Pope, in "Peri Bathous: or, Martinus Scriblerus, His Treatise on the Art of Sinking in Poetry", devotes the last section to "the Cumbrous, which moves heavily under a load of metaphors, and draws after it a long train of words," and "the Buskin, or stately, frequently and with great felicity mixed with the former. For as the first is the proper engine to depress what is high, so is the second to raise what is base and low to a ridiculous visibility: when both these can be done at once, then is the Bathos in perfection: as when a man is set with his head downward, and his breech upright, his degradation is complete: one end of him is as high as ever, only that end is the wrong one."

He then gives some examples:

For see who is there: Advance the fringed curtains of thy eyes/And tell me who comes yonder.
For Shut the door: The wooden guardian of our privacy/Swift on its axle turn.
For Light the fire: "Bring forth some remnant of Promethian theft/Quick to expand th'inclement air congealed/By Boreas's rude breath.
For Uncork the bottle and chip the bread: Apply thine engine to the spongy door,/Set Bacchus from his glassy prison free,/And strip white Ceres of her nut-brown coat.

Pope wrote this in 1728. Wordiness is an old problem.

My-Immortal said:

While I posed uncased in a generally seated position in the most diminished chamber of my humble abode, I happened to ponder the undergarment nestled within the confines of my trousers between the lowest appendages of my skin vessel and realized that earlier, when the golden orb had first dipped its rosy fingers into the eternal sea beyond my dining hall's triumphant windows and I had just finished consuming a great platter of the spiciest of chilies and upon reclining had allowed a gaseous emanation to escape the lowest of my orifices, I had produced something more than a deep bass, rumbling tone to rival the harmonic interlude of the musical trios entertaining my numerous, inebriated dinner guests...I had also unknowingly created a miniscule amount of mucilaginous, odiferous sludge that upon further inspection had marred the very fibers of my undergarment in a pattern that most resembled the image created when a motorized vehicle acclerates to such a heightened degree that it's rubbery wheels departs with some of its own outer shell and vitiates the roadway seen only in its rear-facing mirrors.

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Fan-freaking-tastic!

My-Immortal said:

While I posed uncased in a generally seated position in the most diminished chamber of my humble abode, I happened to ponder the undergarment nestled within the confines of my trousers between the lowest appendages of my skin vessel and realized that earlier, when the golden orb had first dipped its rosy fingers into the eternal sea beyond my dining hall's triumphant windows and I had just finished consuming a great platter of the spiciest of chilies and upon reclining had allowed a gaseous emanation to escape the lowest of my orifices, I had produced something more than a deep bass, rumbling tone to rival the harmonic interlude of the musical trios entertaining my numerous, inebriated dinner guests...I had also unknowingly created a miniscule amount of mucilaginous, odiferous sludge that upon further inspection had marred the very fibers of my undergarment in a pattern that most resembled the image created when a motorized vehicle acclerates to such a heightened degree that it's rubbery wheels departs with some of its own outer shell and vitiates the roadway seen only in its rear-facing mirrors.

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There is no way I can top this, so I'm not even going to try.

My-Immortal said:

While I posed uncased in a generally seated position in the most diminished chamber of my humble abode, I happened to ponder the undergarment nestled within the confines of my trousers between the lowest appendages of my skin vessel and realized that earlier, when the golden orb had first dipped its rosy fingers into the eternal sea beyond my dining hall's triumphant windows and I had just finished consuming a great platter of the spiciest of chilies and upon reclining had allowed a gaseous emanation to escape the lowest of my orifices, I had produced something more than a deep bass, rumbling tone to rival the harmonic interlude of the musical trios entertaining my numerous, inebriated dinner guests...I had also unknowingly created a miniscule amount of mucilaginous, odiferous sludge that upon further inspection had marred the very fibers of my undergarment in a pattern that most resembled the image created when a motorized vehicle acclerates to such a heightened degree that it's rubbery wheels departs with some of its own outer shell and vitiates the roadway seen only in its rear-facing mirrors.

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You took the words right out of my mouth!

My-Immortal said:

While I posed uncased in a generally seated position in the most diminished chamber of my humble abode, I happened to ponder the undergarment nestled within the confines of my trousers between the lowest appendages of my skin vessel and realized that earlier, when the golden orb had first dipped its rosy fingers into the eternal sea beyond my dining hall's triumphant windows and I had just finished consuming a great platter of the spiciest of chilies and upon reclining had allowed a gaseous emanation to escape the lowest of my orifices, I had produced something more than a deep bass, rumbling tone to rival the harmonic interlude of the musical trios entertaining my numerous, inebriated dinner guests...I had also unknowingly created a miniscule amount of mucilaginous, odiferous sludge that upon further inspection had marred the very fibers of my undergarment in a pattern that most resembled the image created when a motorized vehicle acclerates to such a heightened degree that it's rubbery wheels departs with some of its own outer shell and vitiates the roadway seen only in its rear-facing mirrors.

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Wow.

Just...wow.

NeuroFizz said:

Such a thing is not limited to prose. Some poets think purple gets a pass in the poetic format. So, here is one that is in poetry form, but can also address the purpling of prose:


In the darkness, not one day past
blunt end to me, serendipitous cast
an oak did lie full grooved and etched
impacted sinew thusly stretched
a trestle, hissed in cadence force
the act without, but delayed remorse

Or, put in non-Gongorian roe
I just stubbed my fucking toe

NOTE: Gongorism is considered a deliberately ornamental, meaningless and obscure style. It is reported to originate from the works of the Spanish poet Luis de Gongora y Argote (1561-1627), however, the exaggerations of his imitators (evidently) contributed more to the hits on his reputation than did his own work.

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I love the mockery of Gongotism during El Siglo De Oro. This is a example in the classic "biography" of Friar Gerund of Campazas alias El Zotes:

"Camapazas is a population whose mention is abstent in the charts of Ptolomey, because news of its existence never reached his knowlegde for have being established about one millenium and two cycles after the departing of this illustrious geoghrapher"

Please cut some slack
to the kindly ink scribbler
for it hasn't quite tripped
his threshold, the difference
between paraphrase
and periphrase

Light to dark



The dew forms and strays into my eyes, but I’m unable to react. I have nothing left inside, so I lie still and quite, letting liquid feet tread where they may. Not even the sun, with its warm worried gaze, peeking through my curtains, can stir me. For the darkness, the thick, compressing darkness, which has firmly sprouted over my eyes, prevents such a response.

I breathe shallow, weak, tired, cold, gasping for that which has a name but has no form, wanting more and more of its sweetness, but again, unable to go beyond the limits imposed upon me.

Hours have passed since the struggle began, and still I find a way, a reason to fight on. What will become of me, I wonder, when the count down has come to an end? And what about the life I once lived; had it been in vain, or a waste of precious time?

The light grows brightly now, the last I will ever see perhaps, and it’s not alone, for darkness is no more then a step behind. Once it has caught up, the two stand together as one on the edge of eternity, saying goodbye, saying, have a safe journey. I wave. Oh, what I would give to see the sparkles in the heaven once more. To greet the smiling lesser light that rules the dark; to feel the coolness it brings; to taste the life force it represents. One last time, my Lord, I pray. Might I have just one last time?

With that, I take a deep breath and sigh. And in that moment, all humanity, all life, all that I have ever loved, dissolves away like a teardrop in the womb of a mighty ocean.

ICK!

Ziljon said:

You took the words right out of my mouth!

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Please, please, please don't associate that passage with the mouth. The thick, putrid essence of the sentiment is enough to...erm...leave an unpleasant taste in one's mouth as it is.

I do have to grant that it was a particularly creative piece of prose, though.

Amiton.

Not an original, but here's my latest favorite purple prose:

Jim Gleeson, 47, of Madison, Wis., beat out thousands of other prose manglers in San Jose State University's 2007 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest with this convoluted opening sentence to a nonexistent novel:
"Gerald began — but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them 'permanently' meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash — to pee," Gleeson wrote.

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(from this news article)

My-Immortal said:

While I posed uncased in a generally seated position in the most diminished chamber of my humble abode, I happened to ponder the undergarment nestled within the confines of my trousers between the lowest appendages of my skin vessel and realized that earlier, when the golden orb had first dipped its rosy fingers into the eternal sea beyond my dining hall's triumphant windows and I had just finished consuming a great platter of the spiciest of chilies and upon reclining had allowed a gaseous emanation to escape the lowest of my orifices, I had produced something more than a deep bass, rumbling tone to rival the harmonic interlude of the musical trios entertaining my numerous, inebriated dinner guests...I had also unknowingly created a miniscule amount of mucilaginous, odiferous sludge that upon further inspection had marred the very fibers of my undergarment in a pattern that most resembled the image created when a motorized vehicle acclerates to such a heightened degree that it's rubbery wheels departs with some of its own outer shell and vitiates the roadway seen only in its rear-facing mirrors.

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An Ode to Juicy-Toot Gum! There has to be an award for this or something!!!

reigningcatsndogs said:

An Ode to Juicy-Toot Gum! There has to be an award for this or something!!!

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Actually, there is... $250...but the competition's stiff (see above article).

But this one seems to have more flow than Mr. Gleeson's did.

Moved to the Writing Exercises, Prompts and Games forum.