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Glad to oblige my friend!
purple prose is a literary term used to describe writing that is overly extravagant and flowery, the words draw the reader's attention away from the story and to the language instead...kind of distracting. There are more extravagant words used to convey the message or story than necessary. Often includes exaggerated sentiments. The writing is undermined by its over-stylized and formula- following qualities. Often found in romance novels.
A purple patch refers to a winning streak, like when a basketball pro is on a real high point streak, he's said to be riding a purple patch, or enjoying a purple patch. A good luck streak, or a period of very high achievement.
And Bill...how'd you know these answers are rehashing wikipedia unless you looked there yerself? hmmmm? You dawg you...
OK wow bill, I'll try:
His purple beacon of a singular oculus advanced excrutiatingly slowly toward the quivering apperture of her love passage, the latter's upheaval a consequence of the unaccustomed dispute betwixt hasteful expectency and coy timidity.
the term purple patch is used in more general, and more unequivocally positive, sense to refer to a period of outstanding achievement.
Example: a footballer who had scored in six successive games might be said to be " enjoying a purple patch"
glad to be able to help you.
Oh, Lila, dear, sweet, Lila, you ask but a simple, nay, a KINDLY question so exemplary of your own kind, sweet, simple nature. And, these heathen literalists with nary a thoughtful bone in their rigid, unfeeling bodies can only quote the accurate, but totally soulless, entries from Wikipedia. I say, "Fie on the insipid, vacuous lot of them!" Be done with these nefarious literalists and come to me, my Lila, and I shall lead you to purple prosaic enlightenment!
Now, THAT'S some purple prose. Capiche?
Purple prose is defined as:
Writing full of ornate or flowery language.
The best, traditional, accepted example is exemplified in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest--a yearly event written in the style of Bulwer-Lytton. Samples of it can be found here. (Yes, it is a hoot. Can you believe this contest has been going strong for YEARS? Seems like it would be a dubious honor to win.)
Here is an original passage by Bulwer-Litton, the flagship passage, in fact:
"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."
Here is the top purple prose entry on the 2007 contest page:
Gerald began--but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them "permanently" meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash--to pee.
All found at the contest site:
http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/
now for something completely different...
Perhaps the British meaning is different than the American one, but purple patch I found here, in reference to football, which would be--for them--soccer.:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board...
To have a purple patch means to have an exceptionally good period in, say, that game of football. The origin here is a little obscure but could be based on the fact that Roman noblemen wore purple togas. They were clearly exceptional people, hence the analogy. Alternatively the emphasis may be on the patch since purple and other multicoloured areas were sometimes set into ancient illuminated texts and other ventures in order to make them look more distinguished than they truly were. In Horace's De Arte Poetica he says "Often to weighty enterprises and such as profess great objects, one or two purple patches are sewn on to make a fine display in the distance".
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