# What is the most incomprehensible, pseudo-smart sentence you've ever read? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 17, 2018, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499 "2018-09-17T21:40:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2018, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499/21 "2018-09-18T11:57:26Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > The only good thing about Mahler is that Alben Berg is even worse. Of course, that should be ALBAN Berg. He’s even more of an asshole for fucking up my witticism. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2018, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499/22 "2018-09-18T12:11:12Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > The only good thing about Mahler is that Alben Berg is even worse. Oh I dunno - his opera was a Lulu. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2018, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499/23 "2018-09-18T14:53:15Z")
Listen, looking at it very simply musicology and ethnically, the Rutles were essentially imperical malengistes of a rhythmically radical yet verbally passé and temporally transcended lyrically content welded with historically innovative melodical material transposed and transmogrified by the angst of the Rutland ethic experience which elevated them from essentially alpha exponents of in essence merely beta potential harmonic material into the prime cultural exponents of Aeolian cadencic comic stanza form. ---
**Author:** ![Randolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Randolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randolph)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2018, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499/24 "2018-09-18T15:08:41Z")
“This, too, shall pass.” ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2018, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499/25 "2018-09-18T15:46:19Z")
I assume we’re excluding the Toadstool-in-Chief’s Twitter feed – fish in a barrel and all that… ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2018, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499/26 "2018-09-18T17:03:36Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Oh I dunno - his opera was a Lulu. More like a LowLow. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2018, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499/27 "2018-09-18T18:44:27Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > I assume we’re excluding the Toadstool-in-Chief’s Twitter feed – fish in a barrel and all that… Thank you for the perfect description! Both meanings are ideal: mushroom and frog turd! I’ve been waiting for such a thing; other nicknames are overused I believe. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2018, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499/28 "2018-09-18T19:09:21Z")
John Locke was a intelligent man. But reading his work feels like trying to walk through chest deep water. Some random sentences from his work: > [@](#): > > To which, if we add, that monarchy being simple, and most obvious to men, whom neither experience had instructed in forms of government, nor the ambition or insolence of empire had taught to beware of the encroachments of prerogative, or the inconveniences of absolute power, which monarchy in succession was apt to lay claim to, and bring upon them, it was not at all strange, that they should not much trouble themselves to think of methods of restraining any exorbitances of those to whom they had given the authority over them, and of balancing the power of government, by placing several parts of it in different hands. > [@](#): > > So that the end and measure of this power, when in every man’s hands in the state of nature, being the preservation of all of his society, that is, all mankind in general, it can have no other end or measure, when in the hands of the magistrate, but to preserve the members of that society in their lives, liberties, and possessions; and so cannot be an absolute, arbitrary power over their lives and fortunes, which are as much as possible to be preserved; but a power to make laws, and annex such penalties to them, as may tend to the preservation of the whole, by cutting off those parts, and those only, which are so corrupt, that they threaten the sound and healthy, without which no severity is lawful. > [@](#): > > Because these simple ideas that co-exist, and are united in the same subject, being very numerous, and having all an equal right to go into the complex specific idea which the specific name is to stand for, men, though they propose to themselves the very same subject to consider, yet frame very different ideas about it; and so the name they use for it unavoidably comes to have, in several men, very different significations. > [@](#): > > Would those who have this traditional admiration of these propositions, that they think no step can be made in knowledge without the support of an axiom, no stone laid in the building of the sciences without a general maxim, but distinguish between the method of acquiring knowledge, and of communicating it; between the method of raising any science, and that of teaching it to others, as far as it is advanced - they would see that those general maxims were not the foundations on which the first discoverers raised their admirable structures, nor the keys that unlocked and opened those secrets of knowledge. And keep in mind these are single sentences. They were all found in the middle of longer paragraphs. ---
**Author:** ![Reindeer\_Flotilla](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reindeer_flotilla/32/3024_2.png) [@Reindeer\_Flotilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reindeer_Flotilla)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2018, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499/29 "2018-09-18T20:14:12Z")
> [@](#): > > Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo It’s a [grammatically correct sentence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo). ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2018, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499/30 "2018-09-18T20:14:13Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > John Locke was a intelligent man. But reading his work feels like trying to walk through chest deep water. Wow. They are definitely readable, but it’s difficult to unlocke the mystery of what’s in them. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2018, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499/31 "2018-09-18T20:22:45Z")
> [@Zakalwe](#): > > He doesn’t like Mahler’s music and may actually dislike the man himself. 🙂 I’m not sure that that critic had any particular dislike for Mahler’s music - he didn’t seem to give himself a chance to do so, concentrating instead on the fact that Mahler was Jewish and disliking THAT. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2018, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499/32 "2018-09-19T20:32:50Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > I’m not sure that that critic had any particular dislike for Mahler’s music - he didn’t seem to give himself a chance to do so, concentrating instead on the fact that Mahler was Jewish and disliking THAT. Yeah, I think that was, “Jews: they should stop trying to write classical music.” ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2018, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499/33 "2018-09-19T20:48:36Z")
“Be best” (Melania Trump) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2018, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499/34 "2018-09-19T21:37:39Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > That’s definitely not gobbledygook. It’s perfectly understandable, just wrong. No, it wasn’t wrong. Clinton was making a valid point even though his overall intent had been to deceive people. Clinton’s lawyer had submitted a legal statement to the effect that “The President is not having an affair with Monica Lewinsky.” Clinton had authorized this document. It was later proven that Clinton had indeed had an affair with Lewinsky. And he was questioned about this. The opposing lawyer accused Clinton of having authorized his lawyer to release a false statement. Clinton denied it and said the statement was technically true. He then made the point that he hadn’t told his lawyer to say “The President has never had an affair with Monica Lewinsky.” He told him to say “The President is not having an affair with Monica Lewinsky.” And Clinton said the latter statement was true; at the time it was made, he was no longer having an affair with Lewinsky. Clinton, of course, realized that most people would assume that if he said he wasn’t having an affair that he meant he hadn’t been having an affair at all rather than he wasn’t having an affair at the present time. Or as Clinton put it _“It depends upon what the meaning of the word is means. If is means is, and never has been, that’s one thing. If it means, there is none, that was a completely true statement.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499/35 "2018-09-20T08:39:57Z")
British satirical current affairs mag _Private Eye_ has a regular feature called “Pseuds Corner” to showcase recent quotes straying into the pretentious, pointlessly convoluted and/or smugly incomprehensible. The magazine is subscription-only but a few googleable examplesfrom the past include: > [@](#): > > One of the few valid “lessons of history” is that agglutinative processes always set off fissile reactions. > > - FELIPE FERNANDEZ-ARMESTO, Independent > [@](#): > > In his famous speculation on The Next Development in Man, (1947) L.L. Whyte opened his book with the words: “Thought is born of failure.” I myself recently published a short theological-philosophical work, arranged in numbered paragraphs like Michael Frayn’s new book, which had for its first proposition the sentence “If we think hard enough in any single direction we always arrive at the unthinkable.” Frayn begins like this: “The complexity of the universe is beyond expression in any possible notation.” These are three very different books, and there is an interval of 26 years between the earliest and the latest of them; yet all of them set out with what seems to me to be the proper tone for contemporary musing and speculation. > > - Polly Toynbee, reviewing Michael Frayn, The Observer > [@](#): > > An examination of the implications of different moments in the making of a film by juxtaposing on two screens in methodical and analytical fashion the different forms of information made available in the treatment of a limited subject; a study of how film images embody and convey meaning. > > - BFI Annual Report 1974 ---
**Author:** ![RobDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f07891/32.png) [@RobDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobDog)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499/36 "2018-09-20T09:47:10Z")
Ha! Yeah. Pseuds Corner (Pseuds’ Corner? Pseud’s Corner? ) is the first bit I seek out when I get my PE. That, and Colemanballs. If they cancel either, then I’d like to cancel my subscription. > [@Gyrate](#): > > British satirical current affairs mag _Private Eye_ has a regular feature called “Pseuds Corner” to showcase recent quotes straying into the pretentious, pointlessly convoluted and/or smugly incomprehensible. The magazine is subscription-only but a few googleable examplesfrom the past include: ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499/37 "2018-09-20T10:34:22Z")
Here is a genuine and serious description from a conference of the American Comparative Literature Association ([acla.org](http://acla.org)): > [@](#): > > **(Un)Positioning Identity in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Travel Writing** > > This seminar seeks to re-fashion current paradigms that define travel narratives in terms of strictly mapped polarities. More than a strategic instrument for measuring distance, we propose to use “GPS” as a metaphor to interrogate how travel influenced the construction of identity starting in the late eighteenth century. The seminar employs Stuart Hall’s understanding of location as “positions of enunciation” to investigate how travel came to break down previously “stable” notions of identity as individuals experienced dislocation (viewed both as “liberating” the pre-modern self and as unsettling familiar categories). Early travel narratives provide a unique opportunity to study how modern identity was shaped through travel. We are inviting projects that explore how “writing on the move” incorporated and subverted cultural practices and identity formation in relationship to narratives of place and space. How did travel writing (re)fashion the coordinate system of identity when very few people traveled outside their immediate surrounding? How did concepts of abroad and home intersect in the cultural imagination of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century readers? How are metaphors of movement used to construct “authentic” definitions of self? I have no doubt that any paper whatsoever would be accepted and applauded at this seminar, as long as the right jargon was used. There are mountains of this kind of stuff in the humanities… and people wonder why the humanities are in crisis. ---
**Author:** ![missing\_link](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@missing\_link](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missing_link)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499/38 "2018-09-20T12:56:16Z")
French post-Modernist / post-structuralist philosophers? > [@](#): > > Jean Baudrillard: > By crossing into a space whose curvature is no longer that of the real, nor that of truth, the era of simulation is inaugurated by a liquidation of all referentials - worse: with their artificial resurrection in the systems of signs, a material more malleable than meaning, in that it lends itself to all systems of equivalences, to all binary oppositions, to all combinatory algebra. It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real, that is to say of an operation of deterring every real process via its operational double, a programmatic, metastable, perfectly descriptive machine that offers all the signs of the real and shortcircuits all its vicissitudes. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499/39 "2018-09-20T13:46:17Z")
Years ago there was a Big Open Problem (BOP) in my field. Around the same time 3 preliminary papers came out saying they solved it. One of the papers was … short on readable details. In particular, we all agreed that there was one sentence no one could get past. It explained a key thing necessary to understand the rest of the paper. So did they or did they not solve it? They wouldn’t answer questions about The Sentence. They promised the journal version would fix it. But they still insisted on being deemed one of the 3 that solved BOP. The journal paper never appeared. Later, the two actual solvers of BOP won a famous prize for their work. I won’t give the sentence here to avoid getting into a conflict about this, again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incomprehensible-pseudo-smart-sentence-youve-ever-read/821499.md?page=1)