Can you ask someone to “close your eyes and watch” something? Just how private does a conversation need to be in order to upgrade from speaking “privately” to “very privately”? What does it mean for a wild pigeon to be “essentially on life support”? These are some of the many conceptual riddles posed by the contenders for Defector’s annual prize for bizarre sentences in journalism. It’s time to announce the 2025 Shams Charania Award For Excellence In Divulging Of Information Through Syntax Comprehended By Many.
In this year's crop, there are uncharacteristically artless sentences by otherwise capable writers, and characteristically jacked-up sentences by perennial Shamsy contenders, people and outlets steadfastly committed to obscurantism and bluster. Today I hope to honor all those heroes for their humanity, because I spent much of this year wondering whether humans would even be dealing with written language for that much longer. It had a pretty good run.
But this was a year where even relative Luddites began to outsource the act of writing to the machines wherever possible. I saw waterfalls of heavily spaced-out LinkedIn-ese. I heard of job applications composed by LLMs, then evaluated by LLMs. I knew autocompleted emails were ricocheting off other autocompleted emails, endlessly clattering into the void. I wondered if humans were removing ourselves from the loop. Would we be sitting there, mute witnesses to the un-mind talking to itself, those two chatbots locked in an ouroboros of dorky sycophancy?
Even in an era where humans are supposedly ingesting and expelling a larger volume of text than ever before, it seems that we can hardly be bothered to sit down and compose much original language ourselves. That’s why I’m grateful for the yearly ritual of the Shamsys, even the candidates that make me feel concussed after we read them aloud in our deliberations. They are each a testament to human oddity. I find that LLMs produce sentences that are smooth, glib, poreless, smiling, somewhat like a beluga whale. But every busted sentence written by a human is busted in its own way. Each of these sentences is unwittingly an act of resistance against the onrushing techno-homogenization of language. The writer’s own haste, uncertainty, or sloth manifests itself in the syntax. Every time a person begins to write, they are taking a bit of their interiority and, through a wondrous act of inversion, making it legible to the external world. I think we can all agree that this is what’s happening when someone uploads a JPEG of Chris Paul and taps out the words “bizarre severing ties move.”
So let's celebrate that humanity. Thank you to all the readers who submitted candidates over the course of the year. The field was so strong that we coldly skipped over phrases as vivid as "has given the parties their own vantage point of leverage," and didn't think twice. Here are your 2025 Shamsy nominees.
NFL insider Josina Anderson, pairing up her synonyms like on Noah's ark (or boat):
ESPN's Shams Charania, wordily avoiding a "ramp" where it might've actually been appropriate for once:
NBA insider Chris Haynes, giving us an iconic new way to describe a breakup:
ABC News, clarifying the precise timeline of Gene Hackman's death:
Andscape's Marc J. Spears, becoming beloved by Shamsy judges at a faster pace, from a phrasing standpoint:
Chris Haynes, breaking meaningful scoops while innovating in the ad space:
The New York Times, violently mixing metaphors to avoid stating obvious truths:
Reds reporter Charlie Goldsmith, advancing a pigeon saga dramatically in the span of a single minute:
Noted free thinker Batya Ungar-Sargon, stretching language and credulity to describe a common gesture so widely known and loved:
ESPN's Adam Schefter, reiterating a crucial bit of breaking news:
Josina Anderson, putting in close proximity "job is there's" and "contractual mesh points":
An ESPN headline (see image caption), proving that sometimes dominoes are not just toppled but created altogether:
Teddy Schleifer of the New York Times, revealing the many levels of privacy:
Josina Anderson, urging us to be careful with noun-inclusions:
Marcus Thompson II and Sam Amick of The Athletic, explaining the oh-so-obvious:
The Heat subtext of his perspective is as obvious as his early Warriors impact.
The New York Times, mixing substances into a complex paste:
Trump, With More Honey Than Vinegar, Cements an Iron Grip on Republicans
Marcus Thompson II of The Athletic, asking us to process something odd:
Jokić has so normalized ridiculousness as to desensitize the present community from appropriate reverence. He’ll need six MVPs and 10 championships and a five-minute highlight reel of epic moments to help those who didn’t experience him to process his elitism.
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, showing that a degree's laying bare can come very fast:
The degree to which the alleged Trump-Musk friendship has been laid bare as a relationship of convenience came very fast today.
Ramona Shelburne of ESPN, asking us to do something impossible in order to understand that a guy used to play for a different team:
If you closed your eyes and watched Westbrook warm up on the Paycom Center court, a full three hours before Games 1 and 2 of this second-round playoff series between the Nuggets and Thunder, it'd be easy to feel as if you'd gone back in time.
Zach Harper of The Athletic, with some remarkable phrasing that could be used to title a conscious rap album:
There is a looming assumptive threat that Giannis Antetokounmpo could be on the verge of re-evaluating whether this franchise is still for him.
Anthony Slater and Shams Charania of ESPN, packing multiple doozies into a single article:
Considering the frigid nature of the restricted market, the Warriors, sources said, felt the offer more than fair and Kuminga's reluctance a sign of his desire to escape.
But everything within this four-year, multicharacter tug of war is layered.
[…]
Kuminga is the domino that triggers the rest of their plans. So, it's no surprise Kuminga's phone lit up on the business front over the past few weeks.
[…]
In the lead-up, there was sentiment around Kuminga that Lacob would step in and at least deliver the type of financial pledge that signifies the long-term belief in Kuminga that he so often voices. Or, if not -- if the Warriors weren't willing to commit to what Turner and Kuminga were requesting -- maybe Lacob would show more of a willingness to green light a trade elsewhere and proceed with a basketball divorce that has often felt necessary.
[…]
But there are side benefits to that overall net negative that are being considered as part of the equation, sources said.
Tim Britton and Will Sammon of The Athletic, demonstrating that a gap between vibes can be a pachyderm:
That gap, between a vibe that was invariably described as immaculate in 2024 and one that resonated at a different wavelength in 2025, is the elephant in the room for these Mets.
Alexandra Steigrad and Ari Zilber of The New York Post, using some jaunty references to bring this critical news story to life:
Weiss was photographed by Breaker News as she was surrounded by a protective detail that formed a “ring” around the new CBS News boss — including one bodyguard who was described as having “chiseled looks” and a “buff physique” reminiscent of Hollywood hunk Hugh Jackman.
Another of Weiss’ protectors had “Enrique Inglesias’ looks,” [sic] according to Breaker News.
Dan Wetzel of ESPN, writing right through it with a sleight of hand:
While Clark herself has never complained, many of her fans perceive -- and perception quickly becomes reality -- that Clark isn't fully welcome in the league.
Josina Anderson, offering some advice to her readers:
Shams Charania, identifying a unique crossover event:
For the judges, this was our longest discussion yet. We spoke about those eternal ramps and dominoes; voter fatigue with Charania and Anderson; new cultural trends in how people try to sound smart; Timesian mealy-mouthedness; ad-supported tweets; a pigeon's death and resurrection; and layer cakes of hedging. I recommend venturing into that brain fog and listening to our analyses. It really was a stacked list of candidates. But a few weeks later, this one lingers in the mind: “That gap, between a vibe that was invariably described as immaculate in 2024 and one that resonated at a different wavelength in 2025, is the elephant in the room for these Mets.”
This sentence was perhaps doomed from its initial choice of raw materials. Working with “vibes” is not easy. That is a word that, by design, means almost nothing, and, having supersaturated our culture in recent years, has managed to mean even less. In this case, we’re taking two “vibes,” one of which is itself resonating, and measuring the gap between them, then calling that void an “elephant in the room”—that creature that is canonically not an absence but an unavoidable presence. There's so much wreckage in just 32 words.
Congratulations to Tim Britton and Will Sammon of The Athletic on winning the 2025 Shamsy. This is the first award for either writer. Nominations for the 2026 Shamsy can be sent to tips@defector.com as they emerge.
