Worst Sentence of the Week

A group of journlists and educators in Iowa have been holding a regular contest to name the worst sentence of the week. Eligible sentences must have actually appeared in a major newspaper or magazine that week. Most nominees each week are from the Des Moines Register's publications. Interest in the contest keeps growing, so we decided to post the nominees and, later, the winners each week. It's our belief that really bad writing is entertaining, like say the movies of Ed Wood.

this weeks nominees -

Patience paid off, last week’s offerings were so limited we held them over a week. They joined several strong candidates for the award this week. Try to vote for just one: (Nominators’ comments in parentheses)

1. ) "His new menu combines both cuisines, meaning you can choose between spaghetti and meatballs or sizzling fajitas, though you won't find them fused together." (As opposed to "fused apart" one presumes. No wonder it's taking so many decades to create fusion power. I wonder, is there fission cuisine.)

2.) "The French-country decor was very ornate and plentiful.” (In general, I love plentiful decor. you know, like those 6 or 7 thousandthrow pillows Matt and Sherry put on every bed in that HGTV show.)

3.) "Perhaps the band's rapid success can be credited to their philosophy: Play in front of as many people as possible." (Another one that Yogi could have authored. )

4.) "When Dylan was born, he peed all over the place, like a healthy baby with healthy kidneys." (More confusion between simile and metaphor.. So, tell us, what illnesses does this baby have, and what kidney ailments.. Because if he's peeing LIKE a healthy etc. rather than AS a healthy etc., we know that implies a DIFFERENCE, thus, a comparison. And believe me, this breaks me just like a woman.)

5.) "Unless you've got a gaggle of nannies, ahem, Angelina Jolie, there's no such thing as a simple outing when you have a toddler - or three- in tow." (Ahem? Okay, ahem. Like, why are we implying whatever the 'ahem' is implying? Is the fact that Angelina is rich and can afford nannies something embarrassing to her? Does it diminish the fact she adopts third world (so called) babies? Like compared to all the other hugely rich people who do NOT? Ahem.)

6.) "If she feels her day has been overtaken with work, she'll tip back the balance by physically putting herself with her kids." (This may be the worst syntax since--since--since the last article Bri wrote. Nothing else compares. The day is "overtaken" with work, not overwhelmed, overtaken. And there's "the day" at the post, and a nose behind is "work" and now "work" has overtaken "the day" at the finish line…“physically putting herself with her kids” ??? but mentally, she's putting herself with brad pitt?)

7.) "These moms agree a few tactics make their lives easier: planning meals in advance, shopping for diaper bags and cribs on Craig's list, and active husbands." (Planning meals in advance is some idea, huh? Might catch on. Who'd think of THAT? Craig's list. That's as clever as my mother's generation using the want ads. Wow. And yeah, “active husbands” - that one‘s confusing because “tactics” require action, not adjectives, so this is another misuse of an adjective as a verb. Does she mean “giving Activa to husbands?”)

8.) "Motherhood doesn't always make the headlines as a sexy subject - unless the story is about Salma Hayek breast feeding a stranger's baby, but in a metro like Des Moines , where roughly 30,000 women aged 25-34 are mothers, it seems like all types of moms - natural living moms, hip mamas (like Steve Bosman, 26, pictured here with her son Hayden, 6), stay-at-home moms, working moms, progressive and traditional moms - are talking about what it takes to raise children. (That sentence took my breath away…. Just wondering, does the writer really think that she needs all those words… This is breathtaking… I think Bri had too many Tangermeisters while writing this. What‘s the editor‘s excuse?)

9.) "Taki is a classy yet laid-back Japanese steakhouse best known forsushi..." (I am becoming like a moth to the flame regarding Juicers' compulsive use of incorrect, especially negating,conjunctions. This implies that being "classy" is in some sense an interdiction to being "laid-back". This will come as something of a surprise to George Clooney, Fred Astaire or Bing Crosby.)

10.) "It definitely doesn't feel like a bar, and it's not, but you cantaste, tour and buy wine by the glass - which felt a little bit like anafter-work field trip." (I'm very old and out of touch with the fun today, what the hell, what the HELL, is an after-work field trip?