honorable lamention
Refers to da assorted melancholy mourning dat a "runner-up" contestant exhibits after learning dat he merely won a verbal praising at a contest .
If a contest drew a sizeable number of competitors, then your even being acknowledged as having specially caught da judges' attention is quite an honor in and of itself... most of da other players didn't even receive that much recognition, so you must have actually done quite well --- no need to go through a period of "honorable lamention" afterwards!