The 2010 Lyttle Lytton Contest#
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The 2010 Winners
For the past few years I have begun these writeups with some prefatory remarks about what this contest is not: it’s not about puns, it’s not about gross-out humor or whimsical wackiness, etc. But this year I think I can dispense with the introduction, because the winner perfectly encapsulates what the contest is about. So let’s get right to it—the winner of the 2010 Lyttle Lytton Contest is:
“I shouldn’t be saying this, but I think I’ll love you always, baby, always,” Adam cried into the email.
Splashy the whale smiled secretively, flapping his flappers and swimming.
Jackie J.
I think Herman Melville’s corpse just screamed. That’s some awesome mastery of marine mammal anatomy on display there. (Also, couldn’t you append “and swimming” to any description of a cetacean’s activities? “Tillikum the orca pulled his trainer into the water, violently drowning her and swimming.”)
The meteor formed a crater, vampires crawling out of the crater.
Peter Berman
Always nice to get an entry from a past master. A worthy effort! You’ve got the surpassingly dull “formed a crater” to describe a cataclysmic impact, the repetition of the word “crater”, the so-very-clichéd appearance of vampires (from space!!)… but I think my favorite element is what appears to be an attempt to deploy the ablative absolute. Seriously, I think half the sentences I translated back in Latin 2 ended up looking like this.
This is a story about a racist hero who dies at the end, probably painfully since he’ll get shot in the face.
Kat Masterson
The phrase "shot in the face" does a lot of the heavy comedic lifting here (much as it did during the Cheney years) and the “probably” does its part as well. But don’t overlook the switch from the present of “dies”, with the author looking down onto the entirety of the timeline, to the in-timeline future of “he’ll”. Also don’t overlook that the narrator is clearly noisily chewing gum while relating this information.
“You are the greatest human in the world,” the dragon told the boy who desperately wanted to be a dragon, too.
Adam Contini
This is a mystery about a murder I committed.
Lachlan Redfern
Which brings us to:
“Murder is the most terrible crime of them all,” the police commissioner thought to himself as he loitered purposefully near the deli counter.
Aidan Daly
While I’m glad the police commissioner has calmed down a bit since 2007, let's not overlook 21 U.S.C. §603 regarding the sale of tainted meat.
Once upon a time, there was a talking lamp whose lightbulb fell out and hit a person and the person got shocked and destroyed everything.
Megan Groppe
This is such an uncanny recreation of the way five-year-olds tell stories that I assume that the Axe Cop audience would buy up the entire first printing.
Zandor stood in the doorway, raking the onlooking crowd with the hot coals of his eyes.
Mark Caudill
I like this because I can totally see my ninth-grade English teacher giving it a green checkmark with a note saying “Powerful imagery!” Like a lot of the best entries, it seems like it should work: “hot coals of his eyes” seems all right, and “coals” goes with “raking”, and “raking a crowd” is, um, well, and “raking with eyes” is, oh dear…
The general, one might have said, had a sly, sneering-smile expression upon his face.
Sara Barrett
The scary thing is that I’ve had altogether too many of those “dammit, what is the word for that?” moments lately. I can totally feel for this author. “Rrrgh, what’s it called when your face is like—you know, and your mouth is like this, and you’re all, like… I’m pretty sure there’s a word for it…”
There was only one man salubrious enough to assuage my hunger for love—senator Saxby Chambliss (R‐GA).
Kevin Sands
“You are in pain; both physical and emotional,” my heart informed me.
Daniel Blackmore
My amygdala is informing me that I have been there, pal. Empathy subroutines activated. Also note the skillful deployment of the incorrectly used semicolon.
When John left me he took with him my heart, my soul, my everything—which included my happiness, my appetite, my energy, and even my tears!!
Zhao Feng
Not to mention my stereo.
“Great Caesar’s Ghost!” Amy sputtered. “What glorious lovemaking!”
Philip Stephen Ivanhoe
“OMG” texted Sue-Anne to her compatriot Ellen, “MY OWN PARENTS R DED!” It looked like the Mystery Girls had a new mystery!
G. Paal
The IM-speak gag has been done before, but I couldn’t read all that Bad Machinery and not let this one sneak in.
“Approach ramming speed!” commanded Commander Klamsky, as her frigate plowed through the celestial ocean at erupting speeds.
Austin Arrendale
I wonder whether it plowed east’ard.
Bookended with firecrackers, her birth was an auspicious occasion, festooned with all the ornaments of her birth, and solemn.
Dawson Smith
The mention of “firecrackers” and concern with whether the birth was “auspicious” makes me think this is supposed to be taking place in China… but a female fetus actually being permitted to come to term? I’ve seen the Chinese M/F ratio figures. This might stretch suspension of disbelief a bit too far.
As someone who has menstruated, I thought, I could tell you it’s no picnic.
Mary Potts
If you liked Judy Blume’s classic Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, you’ll love the long-awaited sequel, Margaret: First Blood Part II.
“Hearken,” he spake, drawing thither, “and alight thine eyes on yon comely maiden betwixt such knaves as they.”
Joseph Smith
That’s nice, but you’re due back at the “Steak on a Stake” booth in five minutes.
The battlefield stank thick with writhing “progressives”.
Neil Martin
I was surprised to find that this was an original, since I assumed that there would be a source citation and that it would be from something released by Regnery Publishing. A matter of time, I guess.
Tuesday. Africa. Lion o’clock.
Jamie Harding
Some things are so small, so miniscule, so atomically insignificant, they can be seen only from three feet away using the Hubble telescope.
Rick Reilly, ESPN the Magazine, 2009.0629
quoted anonymously
Nine-year-old Kyle Graddy looked out across a minor league baseball diamond for the first time in his life and pondered the possibility of his own death.
Thom Patterson, cnn.com, 2009.1021
quoted by Dylan Telfer
From “the Guardian Angel guide to safe living” circa 1982:
Street punks live in a fantasy world of invincibility, and our fear turns their dreams into reality.
Street Smart by Curtis Sliwa and Murray Schwartz
quoted by Duncan Cross
From the ever-reliable Wikipedia:
Andy Hallett was an only child who grew to stand 6'2".
Wikipedia entry on Andy Hallett
quoted by Paul O’Brian
The saying “I have got your back” almost never has the literal meaning of receipt or possession of another’s spine.
Wikipedia entry on figures of speech
quoted by Chip Snaxley
Here’s one that juuust missed last year’s deadline:
At the peak of a golden career Liu Yan lost control of the very limbs that experts say made her dances so magical.
David Barboza, New York Times, 2009.0417
quoted by Daniel Koning
The very limbs! Those selfsame ones! This is the kind of stretching for irony we saw in last year’s winner with Dan Brown’s president—he’s powerful, you see, but average in height!! But hey, if that’s what you’re after, why not go to the source? Here’s Scott Silverstein again with another gem from the Dan Brown oeuvre:
David Becker had never held a gun, but he was holding one now.
Dan Brown, Digital Fortress
quoted by Scott Silverstein
Jennifer stood there imagining how good that pear would be.
“What’s Wrong With God… Or Is It You?” by Stephen Peterson
quoted anonymously
And then finally one that I was sure would appear in my inbox at some point, but didn’t. So here’s my own contribution for this year. You know how these are supposed to be the first sentences of imaginary novels? Well, here’s someone who’s unequivocal on that point:
*((Gotta put First Things First))*
official transcript of Sarah Palin’s resignation
quoted by Adam Cadre
And that wraps it up for this, the tenth edition of the Lyttle Lytton Contest. I think this was one of the better years for it, joining 2001, 2004, and 2007… I guess that means I should probably wait until 2013 to run it again, but I’ll take my chances on 2011. Thanks to everyone who has entered, posted about, or simply enjoyed the contest over the past decade. You are the greatest humans in the world!
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