Badly-written sentences

[telophase]

This came up because my co-worker is puzzling over a document that contains several sentences that make no sense. After he double-checked with me that indeed they made no sense and it wasn't just him, I was inevitably reminded of my favorite badly-written sentence of all time. (Which I think I might have posted about before, a couple of years ago, but can't find right now.)

This sentence was so powerful that I read it back in 1997 and still remember it.

It's from a short, 4-paragraph item in Science News about research using sound waves to investigate head injuries, and the sentence in question is the next-to-last one. It reads:

So far, the researchers have tested the method on a fake head--a skull filled with gelatin, cadavers, and several healthy volunteers.

God bless 'em!




Citation info, in case you don't believe me:
Wu, Corinna. "Sound waves track head injuries." Science News 152.n24 (Dec 13, 1997): 380(1).

Comments

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

wow, that's gotta be a ginormous head!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

That sounds like the premise for a truly disturbing anime.

[madspark.livejournal.com]

That's pretty righteously bad, yup.

Poor healthy volunteers.

[ninjoo.livejournal.com]

Lol, I love sentences like that!
I'm a member of the Society of the Dutch Language, and in their monthly magazine is always a large section dedicated to sentences like this one, that they picked out of newspapers, brochures and what not. It's my favorite section of the whole magazine!

[chomiji]

Betcha those volunteers weren't so healthy after that!!

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

*rimshot!*

Egads, that must have been an enormous fake skull at that.

[celestriad.livejournal.com]

haha, oh my, no wonder you remembered it. it's a good one. XD;

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

LOL That's awesome!

[tygerr.livejournal.com]

I think they did that on Mythbusters. ;-D