Brevity in Speech and Writing

Brevity in Speech and Writing Brevity is shortness in duration and/or conciseness of expression in a  speech  or a  written text. Contrast with verbosity. Brevity is generally considered a stylistic virtue as long as its not achieved at the expense of clarity. Examples and Observations If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeamsthe more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.(Robert Southey)Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.(Cicero)How brief? Well, as brief as possible but not so brief that the message doesnt get across. But messages vary so. Beat it! is short enough but very long when you reckon in the attitude that comes with it. . . . Brevity, then, depends on the message. . .Brevity, in most human communication, remains a variable governed by social relationships as much as by factual baggage. One is brief in all kinds of ways, and Poloniuss objection, This is too long, always means Too long for this person, place, and time.(Richard Lanham, Analyzing Prose, 2nd ed. Continuum, 2003)[S]ince brevity is the soul of wit,And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,I will be brief . . ..(Polonius in William Shakespeares Hamlet, Act 2, scene 2)There are no hard and fast rules in writing for the ear, but after more than fifty year s of working at it, I believe in some rough guidelines.Two of them are: short is usually better than long and dont waste words. The bank robber Willie Sutton got it right when he was asked why he robbed banks. Thats where the money is, he replied. Have you ever heard three words that convey a message better than stick em up, or Ive had it! or Im outta here? Have you ever heard anyone express himself better, faster, or more to the point than the judge who had the following exchange in his courtroom: As God is my judge, the defendant said, I am not guilty. To which the magistrate answered, Hes not! I am! You are!Now thats good writing. No unnecessary adverbs or adjectives, just telling it like it is. Dont be afraid to write the way people talk.(Don Hewitt, Tell Me a Story: Fifty Years and 60 Minutes in Television, PublicAffairs, 2001) Brevity in Presentations Edit ruthlessly. Brevity, always a virtue, is doubly so when youre trying to avoid watering down your impact. Matt Eventoff, principal of Princeton Public Speaking, in Princeton, N.J., says: This is stuff we’ve all known instinctivelyanyone who’s sat in a corporate meeting over the past 20 years, with slide after slide after slide of information. It can be very powerful information, but it’s overwhelmingyou don’t know what it’s saying. Are we in good shape or in bad shape? You can’t tell. When all the points of your presentation don’t back up your streamlined theme, you really risk losing people and also potentially turning them off. (Christopher Bonanos, Quit While Youre Ahead. Bloomberg Businessweek, Dec. 3-Dec. 9, 2012) Brevity and Conciseness Brevity is often used indifferently with conciseness; but when any difference is implied, then properly speaking, brevity refers to the matter, conciseness to the style. In fact, when brevity of style is spoken of, it may be considered synonymous with conciseness. Strictly speaking, however, brevity merely implies the use of few words, while conciseness implies a great deal of matter concentrated in a small space. (Elizabeth Jane Whately, A Selection of English Synonyms, 1852) Brevity and Clarity It must be recognized that it is very difficult for those giving attention to brevity also to give due care to clarity; for often we either make the language unclear for the sake of clarity or for claritys sake we have to speak at length. It is necessary, then, to be on the lookout whether the brevity is proportional, neither leaving out anything necessary nor including more than is needed. (Nicolaus the Sophist, quoted by George A. Kennedy in Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric. Society of Biblical Literature, 2003) Safires Contrarian View of Brevity Every book on writing you can find these days says essentially the same thing: keep it short. Take it a bite at a time. Dispense with the adjectival frills. Put the punch in the verb and not the adverb (he added weakly). Edit, edit, edit, and avoid repetition. Less is more, spare is fair. . . Maybe we are going overboard. The burst of the business memo, the snap-and-spit of the television news bite, the mincing sentences of post-Hemingway novelistsall have led to the canonization of brevity.. Introduce it, lay it out, sum it up. The dash is dead. It is not for nothing, as the Communists say, that the hottest word in communication is briefing. (William Safire, Introduction: Watch My Style. Language Maven Strikes Again. Doubleday, 1990) The Lighter Side of Brevity People whose vision is perfect in every other respect suffer from a curious astigmatism which prevents them from recognizing a stopping point when they come to it. We suggest to some ingenious inventor that he devise a combination of time clock and trip hammer by which a dull, blunt instrument shall be liberated at the end of five minutes so that it may fall with great force, killing the after dinner speaker and amusing the spectators. (Heywood Broun, We Have With Us This Evening. Pieces of Hate and Other Enthusiasms. Charles H. Doran, 1922)[Calvin Coolidges] most celebrated trait was his taciturnity. An oft-told story, which has never been verified, is that a woman sitting next to him at dinner gushed, Mr. President, my friend bet me that I wouldnt be able to get you to say three words tonight. You lose, the president supposedly responded.(Bill Bryson, One Summer: America, 1927. Doubleday, 2013) EtymologyFrom the Latin, short