OF all the columns in the Star-Bulletin each week, this is the shortest. In fact, I call it "Letter to Readers" because it's too brief to rate one of those punny newspaper names such as "Business Briefcase" or "Pacific Currents." Making a case for brevity
Occasionally, Star-Bulletin readers have been polite enough to tell me they enjoyed a piece - some even accurately recall the topic. Only one has seriously urged me to write longer. I was flattered, but unconvinced.
I believe readers like variety and newspapers ought to offer pieces of many different lengths: long, short, medium.
Short is good. Abraham Lincoln, a legendary communicator, liked short. The Gettysburg Address was just 267 words. That's about 20 more than I cram into this space each week, but short nonetheless. A professor at journalism school told our class repeatedly that Lincoln wrote a friend once that if he'd had the time he'd have written a shorter letter. Few of us took the hint.
When I went looking for it, I couldn't find that particular Lincoln quote, but I stumbled on Shakespeare's "Brevity is the soul of wit," John Heywood's "A short horse is soon curried" and Ben Johnson's "In short measures life may perfect be."
However, it was another Johnson - Dr. Sam - who really nailed the subject: "I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read." No problem here, Doc.