Nation Shudders At Large Block Of Uninterrupted Text

[babylonsister]

Nation Shudders At Large Block Of Uninterrupted Text

March 9, 2010 | Issue 46•10
Nation Shudders

The giant mass of prose was devoid of so much as a large pulled quote for readers to glance at before moving on.


WASHINGTON—Unable to rest their eyes on a colorful photograph or boldface heading that could be easily skimmed and forgotten about, Americans collectively recoiled Monday when confronted with a solid block of uninterrupted text.

Dumbfounded citizens from Maine to California gazed helplessly at the frightening chunk of print, unsure of what to do next. Without an illustration, chart, or embedded YouTube video to ease them in, millions were frozen in place, terrified by the sight of one long, unbroken string of English words.

"Why won't it just tell me what it's about?" said Boston resident Charlyne Thomson, who was bombarded with the overwhelming mass of black text late Monday afternoon. "There are no bullet points, no highlighted parts. I've looked everywhere—there's nothing here but words."

"Ow," Thomson added after reading the first and last lines in an attempt to get the gist of whatever the article, review, or possibly recipe was about.

At 3:16 p.m., a deafening sigh was heard across the country as the nation grappled with the daunting cascade of syllables, whose unfamiliar letter-upon-letter structure stretched on for an endless 500 words. Children wailed for the attention of their bewildered parents, businesses were shuttered, and local governments ground to a halt as Americans scanned the text in vain for a web link to click on.

Sources also reported a 450 percent rise in temple rubbing and under-the-breath cursing around this time.

more...






http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nation_shudders_at_large_block_of

:evilgrin:

[HereSince1628]

1. Apparently a job for LETTERMAN!

[ellenfl]

2. lol! too true!

in a related case, i love it when repub congress critters claim to not have read the bills because they are too long but know will argue what's in them anyway.

ellen fl

[SidDithers]

3. "the article, review, or possibly recipe"...

:rofl: :rofl:

The Onion is a national treasure. Thanks for posting :)

Sid

[Hissyspit]

4. Can someone tell me what's so funny about this article?

I didn't read it. Too few paragraph breaks.

[Lochloosa]

5. So why is prose causing people to curse?

[Jokerman]

6. "unfamiliar letter-upon-letter structure stretched on for an endless 500 words"

That is one of the funniest things I've read in a long time.

[Fumesucker]

7. An example..

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Run-on_sentence

The Run-on Sentence is a commonly used literary device, in some cases going so far as to take up very large spaces the amount of a whole paragraph, continuing on for a very long while without any sign of a exclamation point, question mark, or even a simple period to close it off and begin a new sentence, usually containing a large mass of commas and occasionally semicolons in their places, and going very far on beyond any point of real usefulness, and then some, continuing much further than needed, which is like this entire introductory paragraph for the reason that there are no full stops, (known as periods to some people) in this entire sentence—this being, of course, for the sole purpose of making this sentence long enough to be in extremely bad taste and seem like it is never going to end, which, of course, is almost true, because even though this sentence has not stopped yet it is very likely to stop in the future, for even a run-on sentence such as this one is not very likely to have an infinite number of words, although it can have such a large amount of words that nobody in their right mind would actually want to read the entire thing, unless they found it comical or interesting, for the simple reason that it is very, very long, long enough, in fact, to take up the entire page when written in a reasonably large font, its length being its sole claim to fame, for the reason that sentences do not normally go on to such a length; while run-on sentences can be as long as this one, or even longer, without any sign of stopping, and in complete absence of the kind of punctuation that would usually end every sentence, because one of the most fundamental rules of proper sentence structure, namely that sentences have to be of a reasonable length and have a coherent structure, is being completely ignored in run-on sentences, which is the reason why most teachers forbid run-on sentences in essays and papers, as they are disruptive and confusing, and even a single run-on sentence can be so long as to make the essay much longer than it would normally be, without adding any content, because almost all run-on sentences lose focus after a point and just become a sequence of random ramblings, which, because they lack proper termination, can last for a very long period of time, but as said above, all run-on sentences must eventually end because they cannot have an infinite number of words, though the longer they get, the less effort needs to be put into them and at this point I could probably say anything I want and nobody in their right mind would actually read far enough to tell that I am getting completely off topic and should probably stop now, but I won't, the reason being that this being a run-on sentence it is not entirely necessary for me to be on topic or even remotely related to whatever I said to begin with; a run-on sentence in its entirety can be one insanely long piece of work, however usually they are created by mistakes by some student who understands nothing of the beauty of the English language and its grammatical tenets.

[Fumesucker]

8. Another example..

This sentence is very long and has no value until someone gives value to this useless sentence which will probably take a long time and that will simply not do at all for this sentence is not merely interesting but funny as well for the creator of this article was mental and had no sense and the article could use something actually funny, like how capybaras and fungi are related which would make the article very hilarious as well as useful and it might even be put up on the Main Page which would be amazing for such a boring article that doesn't even break the record for shortest sentence, because it is in fact an article about run-on sentences which are so meaningless like this one that they just look like a monotonous gray block, as well as the most boring article ever on this wiki but if it ever did break a record all cats would be famous and that would be very nice for cats love ice cream and pasta which the world could use getting rid of for they are very healthy and they taste like sushi and sushi tastes like milk and milk tastes like dino eggs and dino eggs taste like rocks and rocks taste like spinach which does not taste good at all but yet this article might be good if there was a such thing as a dragon for they breath fire and would kill everyone and that would be very funny and that would be so cool for dragons because dragons have lots and lots of fun killing but maybe they don't have fun killing maybe they just kill because they get to told to in books like Eragon which is not as cool as dragons in wintertime which is when everything is cold and not warm but sometimes it will be warm in winter if you are lucky and if you are not lucky it will be cold like ice cream which if you are lucky will be cold and if you are not lucky it will be warm and liquidy which could be a word and otherwise it isn't a word and if it isn't a word then I should not have used it because using made up words is not very smart because it seems like you can't find a real word to fit the situation such as that crocodile is so crocodiley, see look it makes you seem dumb because they think that you can't think of a real word when really if you have tried you could have said that crocodile is so reptillian which I think is a real word but maybe I spelt it wrong and maybe if I was lucky I did because at school I learnt to spell things correctly like the word the and cheese I spelt them correctly see check a dictionary I spelt that correctly too because I went to school which is where you can learn to spell and sometimes you learn things like the language features of a cinquain poem but not always but usually if you are doing a unit on poetry which was once said to be the English language at its best but not if the poem was in Spanish than it would be the Spanish language and its best which is not the same as the English language because they don't use the same words and Mexicans can't speak English; they speak Spanish, not Mexican which is what George Bush once said they spoke because I think it was supposed to be a joke like this article but it failed miserable because as said earlier it isn't funny and will not win any awards unless it is lucky and if it isn't lucky you might have a cold winter or maybe a warm ice cream which are both equally unlucky unless you do not believe in luck but instead believe in destiny or fate which is what I am trying to find out so I took up the hobby of palmistry which is reading palms and you can learn things like what your head line and life line are but you don't learn things like that in school you learn things like the language features of a cinquain poem and you also don't learn things about dragons who might or might not like killing people but dragons are cool and you might learn are them in school, if you are lucky, and if you are not lucky you will be forced to eat warm ice cream and have cold winters and while you are participating in such fun activities as the eating of warm ice cream and having a cold winter you may need to keep in mind that you could die at any second like now or now or now or now or maybe but not likely now and I don't think that anyone died when I was typing now or you were reading the nows but then again maybe some one in a place like Africa did because on planet earth someone dies every 2 seconds but that is probably because Africans die a lot because they starve and catch diseases because no one will teach them how to take over Microsoft and become rich like Bill Gates who is the captain of the chess team in the song High School Never Ends by bowling for soup which is a band like Fall Out Boy except the only difference if Fall Out Boy is actually good a ha ha ha just kidding they are not good they are the opposite of good they are bad which is the opposite of good or if you like you might say antonym I am definitely sure they taught me in homeschool along with the language features of a cinquain poem and guess what, I can recall which means opposite and which means something similar but synonym is probably the similar one because it sounds the same at the start or maybe I am wrong I have been wrong before like the time when someone was in an epic aeroplane chase from police heli-copters which were not as fast so they used the army jets to follow the criminal who was in an aeroplane which he got off eBay but anyway he was flying fast and I told the army to use a nuclear missile to hit the plane but not a homing missile just a nuclear one and I was wrong and it missed and hit Germany and that is how Hitler was born but not Adolf Hitler, his older brother Harry who was not Adolf Hitler because they can't both be Adolf Hitler unless they had the same name which they did not and I know this because I asked my mother when she was having a heart attack and answered my question which was 'was Adolf Hitler the same as his older brother' and she replied 'call an ambulance' which I assume was mother talk for no and since mothers know best I was sure my mother was right and you might be wondering why I say mother not mom and the answer is because I am a kiwi so I spell mom with a 'u' like mum and I wasn't sure if you understood it and I don't like spelling it like mom so I just say mother which is correct even if you are American or a Kiwi which is also the native bird of New Zealand but they like to call themselves Kiwis sometimes but even New Zealanders are not animals they are humans like you unless you are an animal or an alien and you may think this is is racist(creatureist?) to aliens because I said they don't count as humans but that is the truth they are not homo-sapiens they are aliens unless on some really far off planet they co-incidentally called themselves homo-sapiens too but they probably didn't just like Harry didn't have the same name as Adolf Hitler or pizza didn't have the same name as oinker who was a pig who starred in the classic movie released in 1987 titled 'Who'a stole'a my pig?' in which the pig runs around the well known country of Canada in an attempt to escape from the evil Italian chef who wants nothing more than to eat Oinker however the evil chef known only as 'Evil Chef' assumed some Canadian had stolen oinker and proceeded to slay 1 bajillion Canadians before Oinker gathered the courage to admit that he never was stolen and ran away because he wanted the Evil Chef to stop killing the friendly canadians who had sheltered him in his time of need which is why he confessed to the Evil chef but the movie received high ratings for having a pig who could talk a human language like Italian to humans unlike that lame pig Babe or that Pig in Charlotte`s Web whose name I cannot recall (maybe Wilbur) and if that pig had been able to speak fluent English he wouldn't've needed that spider's help but I think that is enough about pigs, so how about we talk about some current day music like Elvis who was good but I think he is no longer alive or he could be a zombie which would be cool because he could sing and write some cool zombie songs like 'Zombie Life Never Ends' or 'Boulevard of Broken Heads so I could Eat Brains' or 'Welcome to the Undead Parade' or 'Don't Feel Like Livin' or 'How to Take a Life' or 'One Way Ticket to being a Zombie' or 'Download this Brain' or 'Stacy's Mom's Brain' or 'When I'm Gone and Back as a Zombie' or 'Eat my Mind' or 'Ridin' Deady' or 'I died while landing Holly' or 'In the Summer-by the way I'm a zombie-time' or 'The Saints are Coming to Send Us Back to the Underworld But we are Going to Eat their Brains When They Get Here' or 'Love Me or Ate Me' or 'Roller-Coaster of Dead' or 'Windows Zombie' and if he zombie Elvis made all the songs it would be cool for a zombie I'm sure no-one would sue him and everyone would love the songs but then again I cannot tell the future so I don't know if they would sell well hopefully they do because Zombie Elvis could be the next Weird Al Yankovic but only bigger because he is the King because he is Elvis but enough about Elvis let's hear more about this article which only went to Dragons have lots of fun killing people and then I (imaginary person) did everything else because I am so nice and have nothing better to do because school just ended for the day and I didn't learn about any language features of a cinquain poem because I was lucky and get to eat cold ice creams and even though it is summer in NZ I might have a warm winter if I am lucky but anyway I was just wondering if you want to talk about something relevant to today such as T.V. shows of today but I am in NZ so it probably will be different than what you see on T.V. so maybe how about hold on I just realized school taught me how to spell maybe man that is crazy I never thought I would use something I learnt in school that is weird but it would still be better if dragon information was taught in school but I guess that is too much to hope for because dragon information has been obsolete since the death of Keith Moon in 5000 BC, man that Keith Moon was a funny guy with a red nose and blue eyes and a green face and blue hair even though nobody on this planet has blue hair except for the people who dye it blue and those people are nutto and they always love hot dogs except on Tuesdays because they prefer human babies then but on Wednesday they enjoy a few nibbles of bad video games and crappy computers made solely by Steve Jobs or in all probability by a young child in a nondescript third-world country struggling to survive on below-subsistence wages in a war-torn environment while in America people watch the news on the television and pay more attention to the latest exploits of Paris Hilton than to massive suffering of millions of people because lets face it some people are just stupid and shortsighted and selfish no alliteration intended and they cannot see the nose in front of their face for the very good reason that it is very difficult for the average person to consciously see their own nose unless they are Cyrano de Bergerac or they happen to be looking in the mirror in which case they are not seeing their nose but the light reflected from their nose (and some people's noses do reflect extraordinary amounts of light) but when you think about it no one ever really sees anything only the light reflected from an object so it's stupid to decide that seeing one's nose in a mirror is less real than seeing it in any other way, in the same way that many things are stupid, including communism sharks any novels by Charles Dickens and this long incredibly pointless sentence that is probably not worth your while to read, and if you did you probably have no life whatsoever, unless you just skipped here, which would be cheating, which would not be allowed, except in the case of certain games which allow cheating, thus making the cheating in fact not cheating, so cheating within the rules is sort of a paradox which one should normally not go into, but there's tons of space for it in this ridiculously long sentence which probably violates all of the part of Uncyclopedia guidelines that discusses being funny and not just stupid, but its not like is anyone is actually going to read this sentence, which was relatively recently discussing the paradox of cheating within the rules, a paradox which can be resolved with a healthy application of Oscar's Paradox Untangler Salve , which, by the way, contains the same active ingredient as Pre-Instant Cofee's Stable Loop blend, which is used to resolve paradoxes of all sorts, except for those involving the substance itself, causing a paradox involving the very means by which the parodox was to be avoided, this type of paradox being known as a "meta-paradox", or, a paradox that paradoxically involves another paradox, which could be a paradox concerning watermelons, which are especially prone to paradoxes as well as being prone to being the subject of ridiculously long sentences that no-one in their right mind should ever read, ever, and if you did read all the way through this monstrosity, you clearly, as has been mentioned above in that tangled mass which is now so large as to physically crush the text underneath, requirng restoration by underpaid workers, have no life.

[LynzM]

9. I've gotten a couple emails written that way.

They make my brain hurt. :P