It would seem to be a truism that the facilities which are to be regarded as indispensable to the proper study of a subject, and which ought, therefore, to be provided as a matter of course, should, like the methods of teaching, be determined by the nature of the subject, or, in other words, by the kind of material with which it has to deal; but the disparity in the equipment of the various departments of study and research commonly to be observed in even the best and richest American colleges and universities seems to indicate that, so far at least as the so-called “humanities” are concerned, little provision of appliances, save modest shelter from the weather and seats enough for the class, is generally thought absolutely necessary.
It's about 128 words long
Any longer ones around? The longest I've tried to read were in Pamela - and they didn't even have any punctuation
Anne
If you are wondering what it means , a rough, slightly shorter translation is "Others get a bigger slice than me and it's not fair"
funny idea, I just came across your post today.
Just to clarify: You refer to sentences which were read on LV, not to sentences that were written in the forum, right?
I can barely imagine any longer sentences than those I came across with Proust, eg in Swann's way:
He saw then that in her determination not to take cognisance of, not to
have been affected by the news which had just been imparted
to her, not merely to remain dumb, but to have been deaf as
well, as we pretend to be when a friend who has offended us
attempts to slip into his conversation some excuse which we
might appear to be accepting if we heard it without
protesting, or when someone utters the name of an enemy the
very mention of whom in our presence is forbidden, Mme
Verdurin, so that her silence should have the appearance not
of consent but of the unconscious silence of inanimate
objects, had suddenly emptied her face of all life, of all
mobility; her domed forehead was no more than an exquisite
piece of sculpture in the round, which the name of those La
Trémoïlles with whom Swann was always “ensconced” had
failed to penetrate; her nose, just perceptibly wrinkled in a
frown, exposed to view two dark cavities that seemed
modelled from life.
It has 174 words.
Any experts of "Ulysses" by James Joyce around? I think, JJ might even have written longer sentences, as far as I heard they also might lack punctuation at all.
Unfortunately, Thomas Mann will not be read on LV before 2025, but he might top them all!
Last edited by RiDi on July 23rd, 2018, 4:13 am, edited 3 times in total.
Ricarda
Ingenious, really, how many ways muggles have found of getting along without magic. (Arthur Weasley)
ok, I corrected it, now it's 174 words.
Honestly, I do not know, if Proust ever wants to actually say anything
He rather describes.
Here, it is a woman who does nor want to hear a part of a conversation that makes her uncomfortable. Proust describes her face while she tries not to listen.
Ricarda
Ingenious, really, how many ways muggles have found of getting along without magic. (Arthur Weasley)
168 words from Studies in the Art of Rat Catching (if we are measuring a sentence as the number of words until you get to the next full stop):
If one passed down the red gravel churchyard path, and on in front of the south door to the far corner, under the big cedar, a small door would be found, which would lead through a well-kept, old-fashioned garden to the Rectory: a good old Elizabethan house, covered with thick creepers up to the very eaves, the model of one of England's snug homes—homes that have turned out the very best men the dear old land has produced, to fight, struggle, conquer or die in all professions, in all parts of the world; men who in such shelters learned to be honest and true, brave and persevering, lions in courage, women in gentleness; who could face hardships and poverty without a moan, and prosperity and riches without swagger; and through all the difficulties of life thought of the old home, and when success arrived, be they ever so far away, packed up and came back to finish their days in just such another home and such surroundings.
Not quite up to Proust's 174 words, but I was fairly sure there was one of 175 words. I haven't found it yet (there are a number of monster sentences in this book - I did take to counting the words for fun)
I know it won't be at LV as it is still in copyright, but I recall sentences in The Tin Drum that went on and on and on.
I just spent the evening editing a section of Horace Mann's Eleventh Annual Report to the Massachusetts Board of Education which included this 150-word beauty:
Among the republics of ancient times, a few wise and sagacious men did clearly perceive the bearing of education upon character, and, of course, upon innocence and guilt, both personal and public; but among the masses of the people there never existed any settled and operative conviction of this truth; and not a single year can be pointed out in all their long annals, where a majority of those who held the reins of government, and framed the laws of the State, rose to any practical or even theoretic conception of the grand idea, that the vital intelligence or the stupidity, the integrity or the dishonesty, of the people at large, will be measured and bounded by the kind and degree of the education imparted to its children, just as the zones upon the earth’s surface are measured and bounded by the amount of sunlight which is shed upon them.
I have found that even very long sentences are not hard to read if they are helpfully punctuated. Luckily Mr. Mann is generous with his commas and semicolons, breaking up his sentences into little bite-size nibbles. (I've read other authors who haven't been so considerate!)
Mark Twain wrote a 208-word sentence to complain about long sentences in "The Awful German Language" (part of A Tramp Abroad).
An average sentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and impressive curiosity; it occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all the ten parts of speech -- not in regular order, but mixed; it is built mainly of compound words constructed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in any dictionary -- six or seven words compacted into one, without joint or seam -- that is, without hyphens; it treats of fourteen or fifteen different subjects, each inclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with here and there extra parentheses which reinclose three or four of the minor parentheses, making pens within pens: finally, all the parentheses and reparentheses are massed together between a couple of king-parentheses, one of which is placed in the first line of the majestic sentence and the other in the middle of the last line of it -- after which comes the VERB, and you find out for the first time what the man has been talking about; and after the verb -- merely by way of ornament, as far as I can make out -- the writer shovels in "haben sind gewesen gehabt haben geworden sein," or words to that effect, and the monument is finished.
It's true about German though! When I was writing a paper with a German collaborator (in English) he insisted that it should be one sentence per paragraph! He said good writing keeps flowing...
The other English speaking collaborator and I had to break it all down and reassemble it to make sense of it - and we drove him crazy because we assembled it differently! He kept asking "which is right?" and we kept saying "both are right!"
Until now, this is the longest sentence I've read so far. It contains 568 words and is from "Interessante Kriminal-Prozesse, Teil 2 von Hugo Friedländer", in German, of course.
In der Strafsache gegen den Schriftsteller und Dr. phil. Joseph Ignatz v. Kraszewski zu Dresden, den Hauptmann a.D. und Telegraphensekretär a.D. Albert Hentsch zu Berlin, den Geschäftsführer Wladislaus Anastasius Stephan v. Konospacki und den russischen Major a.D. Stephan Casimir August v. Bodanowicz zu Dresden, wegen des Verbrechens des § 92, Pos. 1 des Strafgesetzbuches, hat das Reichsgericht, Erster Strafsenat, nach Anhörung des schriftlichen und mündlichen Antrages des Oberreichsanwalts in nichtöffentlicher Sitzung vom 10. März 1884, in Erwägung, daß wider die vier Angeschuldigten die Voruntersuchung eröffnet und von dem Oberreichsanwalt gegen die Angeschuldigten v. Kraszewski und Hentsch Anklage erhoben, hingegen bezüglich der Angeschuldigten v. Konospacki und v. Bodanowicz der Antrag gestellt worden ist, dieselben in Ermangelung genügenden Beweises einer strafbaren Tat außer Verfolgung zu setzen; in Erwägung, daß nach dem Inhalt der Voruntersuchung die Angeschuldigten v. Kraszewski und Hentsch genügend verdächtig erscheinen, und zwar beide Angeschuldigte, Nachrichten betreffend den Aufmarsch resp. Eisenbahntransport der deutschen Armee nach der Westgrenze und betreffend die Dienstinstruktion für die Feldtelegraphie, von welchen sie wußten, daß ihre Geheimhaltung anderen Regierungen gegenüber für das Wohl des Deutschen Reiches und der Bundesstaaten erforderlich sei, in den Jahren 1876 bis 1881 gemeinschaftlich durch zwei selbständige Handlungen der französischen Regierung in der Weise mitgeteilt zu haben, daß Hentsch den Inhalt dieser Nachrichten aus amtlichen und sekretierten Materialien entnahm, in schriftlichen Ausarbeitungen zusammengestellt und diese Schriftstücke durch die Vermittelung des Literaten Adler dem Angeschuldigten v. Kraszewski übersendete, dieser aber sie an die bezeichnete Regierung gelangen ließ, der Angeschuldigte Hentsch allein in den Jahren 1876 bis 1883 durch mehrere selbständige Handlungen, Nachrichten über a) Komplettierung der Behörden und Truppen an Pferden, b) die Fortifikationen der Festung Metz, c) technische Bestimmungen für Fortifikations-, Artillerie- und Garnisonbauten, d) die Verwendung des Infanteriegewehrs M. 71, von welchen er wußte, daß ihre Geheimhaltung anderen Regierungen gegenüber für das Wohl des Deutschen Reiches und der Bundesstaaten erforderlich sei, diesen Regierungen in der Weise mitgeteilt zu haben, daß er den Inhalt der bezeichneten Nachrichten aus amtlichen und sekretierten Materialien entnahm, denselben in schriftlichen Ausarbeitungen und Abschriften zusammenstellte und diese Schriftstücke zu a, b, c durch die Vermittelung des Literaten Adler an den Agenten der russischen Regierung bzw. an diese selbst, zu d aber durch die nämliche Vermittelung an die österreichische Regierung gelangen ließ; sowie ferner im Jahre 1881 sich zur Begehung des Verbrechens des § 92 Pos. 1 des Strafgesetzbuches erboten zu haben, indem er schriftlich und gegen eine Belohnung in Geld Nachrichten über das Sturmgerät, von welchem er wußte, daß ihre Geheimhaltung anderen Regierungen gegenüber für das Wohl des Deutschen Reiches und der Bundesstaaten erforderlich sei, solchen Regierungen mitzuteilen in Aussicht stellte; in Erwägung, daß auf diese strafbaren Handlungen die §§ 92, Pos. 1, 74, 47, 49, Pos. 4 des Strafgesetzbuches und sonach bezüglich der Aburteilung derselben die §§ 136 und 138 des Gerichtsverfassungsgesetzes und die §§ 2ff. und 201ff. der Strafprozeßordnung zur Anwendung zu bringen sind, beschlossen: daß gegen die Angeschuldigten v. Kraszewski und Hentsch das Hauptverfahren vor dem vereinigten zweiten und dritten Strafsenat des Reichsgerichts wegen der vorbezeichneten strafbaren Handlungen zu eröffnen und die Untersuchungshaft des Angeschuldigten Hentsch beizubehalten, die von dem Oberreichsanwalt beantragte Untersuchungshaft des Angeschuldigten v. Kraszewski aber, in Anbetracht des bezüglich dessen Gesundheitszustandes erstatteten ärztlichen Gutachtens nicht zu verhängen, dagegen nach § 93 des Strafgesetzbuches, §§ 480, 333 bis 335 der Strafprozeßordnung das Vermögen dieses Angeschuldigten bis zur rechtskräftigen Beendigung der Untersuchung mit Beschlag zu belegen sei.
Claudia
"Aus Druckerschwärze entstehen Dinge, Menschen, Geister und Götter, die man sonst nicht sehen könnte." Erich Kästner
RiDi wrote: ↑July 23rd, 2018, 3:45 am
Any experts of "Ulysses" by James Joyce around? I think, JJ might even have written longer sentences, as far as I heard they also might lack punctuation at all.
I think it's actually Finnegan's Wake (still Joyce though). Ulysses is surprisingly accessible.
Wow, Claudia, that is a very impressive sentence!
And also a first class example for what we call in german "amtsdeutsch", which one might translate with "bureaucratic german".
Beware af lawyers!
Ricarda
Ingenious, really, how many ways muggles have found of getting along without magic. (Arthur Weasley)
in "The Awful German Language" (part of A Tramp Abroad).
He so grasped german, I loved to hear "The Awful German Language" on LV!
