This week on Brevity=Wit, we take a break from our more literary investigations to examine a different genre of composition: giving directions.

The field of direction-giving is one in which brevity is perhaps even more important than in literature.  Lengthy directions are confusing and impractical; as you’re driving to your destination, you don’t want to be holding up a direction sheet the size of a newspaper (since this concept may be difficult for some to understand, think of it instead as being the size of about 30 iPhones) in front of your windshield.  The person being guided does not want to know about landmarks that are no longer there, or how to get to other places that are sort of on the way, or how it would be possible to get there if it weren’t for all this construction.  Keep it short and sweet.

For your further education, here is an example I once heard of how NOT to give directions:

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could”

And, if you can believe it, it goes on like that for about three more paragraphs.  These directions, given by a guy named Bob, are entirely unhelpful.  First off, directions should not be seasonal.  Just because the wood was yellow when you went there in October doesn’t mean it still will be when you’re telling me how to get there in February.  Second, there is absolutely no reason to discuss your feelings about a route.  Tell me that you tried both ways and one didn’t work, or that the other path is a decent alternative if you’re not in a hurry and want to avoid the highway.  Don’t tell me that you felt sorry for a road.

Thirdly, as you’ve probably noticed, our friend Bob presents us with a fork in the road and then doesn’t say which way to go. He does get to the topic eventually, in paragraph four, but even then his description is useless.  “The one less traveled by?”  How am I supposed to know?  What if the Department of Transportation came through and paved it since you were there?  C’mon, Bob.

Now, in this day and age, you could say that the art of giving directions is no longer necessary, that you can just go to Google Maps and type in “the yellow wood” and you’re all set.  But some people don’t fully trust internet directions.  Some still want to hear it from the mouth of someone who has been there, and if nothing else, Bob does convince you, at length, that he has been there.  For those people, I have prepared these succinct instructions:

“At Yellow Wood, the road splits.  Turn left.  Actually, you could go right, as long as you still get on the turnpike, but left is easier.”

Not being late to your job interview because you spent hours sitting in the woods wondering which way to go?  That’s what really makes all the difference.

Do you know what I miss?  I miss big opening speeches.  Nowadays it seems like everyone prefers to start off a story by just throwing you into the middle of it and letting you figure out what’s going on as things transpire.  Whatever happened to the storyteller, the almighty omniscient narrator, the unquestionable figure who appears in the beginning and definitively sets the stage for us all?

William Shakespeare knew how to do it.  Now there was a man who could open his plays with a great starting speech.  Let’s take a look at one of his most famous, the starting monologue from Romeo and Juliet:

“Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny.
Where civil blood makes”

Huh.  Wow.  Yeah, that opening speech was a lot longer than I remembered.  Setting the scene is all well and good, but come on, let’s see a little concision here!  If you’re going to begin with talking rather than action, you’ve got to make sure you wrap it up before you lose everyone’s attention.  We’re told about the feuding families, which is important, but I always thought that Romeo and Juliet was about, you know, Romeo and Juliet.  Our famous star-crossed lovers don’t appear in this intro.  And Heaven help you if you want to know what civil blood makes.  I can’t tell if the last line sounds like it should be a proverb or a Zen riddle.  Civil blood makes . . . civil neighbors?  Waste?  A man healthy, wealthy, and wise?  The sound of one hand clapping?

This thing definitely needs saving.  Let’s see if we can cut it down:

“Two classy families in Verona hate each other.  Two of their kids don’t, but they’re doomed.  When they kill themselves it fixes everything.”

Tada!  All the vital information, quick and easy.  Sure, it gives away the ending, but you’ve got to remember that this play predates the spoiler warning by several centuries.  When they call it The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, nobody’s expecting them to have kids and live to a ripe old age.  Anyway, with this we are able to finish the opening quickly and move on to the real meat of the play: puns on the carrying coals/colliers/choler/collar theme and a veritable rash of thumb-biting.

With Christmas coming up soon, I felt that it was time to take a look at a holiday classic.  “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas,” commonly known as “The Night Before Christmas,” is a nice, short poem.  Clement Clarke Moore knew what he was doing; the whole thing can be read in only a few minutes, which is much quicker than all those Christmas carols, where it takes half an hour to remember and agree upon the words to all the obscure verses that no one ever sings.  Truly an exemplar of brevity . . . or, at least, it was in 1823, when it was first published.  Let’s see how it holds up to today’s standards:

“‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimn”

Well that explains why everyone thinks the poem is called “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.”  It’s the only part that anyone can remember.  I mean, geez Louise, Moore really needs to remember what his priorities are.  He called the thing “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas,” and the jolly guy himself never even makes it down the chimney (the chimney only barely sneaks in itself).  The author sets a nice scene, but is it really fair that the mouse, without even making a sound, earns more mention than the title character?  Looks like this thing is in need of serious work after all.

I don’t see what Moore’s big problem was.  The substance of the poem can be easily summed up within reasonable limits.  Observe:

“On Christmas Eve, I saw Santa and his reindeer on the roof.  He came down the chimney, laughed, went back up, and wished us well as he left.”

There you go.  Everything you need, right there in just two sentences.  St. Nick gets to play his part, as do the reindeer.  Everyone should be happy.

Of course, there are those who complain that the condensed version lacks the true Christmas spirit, that it lacks “whimsy.”  Let it never be said that I am an unreasonable man.  In response to this objection, I have prepared a second version that both stays within appropriate character limits and maintains the rhythm and rhyme that are what some people believe gives the poem its heart:

“Xmas Eve, quiet, I got up quick
Saw on the roof: ol’ jolly St. Nick
Gave gifts to us, then he took to flight
‘Merry Xmas to all, and also good’”

(NOTE: Sources suggest that St. Nicholas intended to include one additional final word in his parting phrase, but, most regrettably, his sleigh had already passed beyond the narrator’s range of hearing.)

Now, when we left off last week, Brutus had just calmed the rabid crowd (with the help of some tasteful editing) by convincing them that Caesar’s death was necessary in order for them all to remain free of tyranny.  But the funeral was not over yet.  Someone had to speak up for Caesar, and that someone was Marc Antony.  He may not have been as smart as Brutus, but he knew one thing: when given the choice, always choose to speak second.  And, to the ears of the gathered mob (who were satisfied by Brutus’ speech and probably already starting to break up), he spoke thus:

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is of”

Okay, so he starts off a little better than Brutus.  Antony was more of a people person.  It doesn’t take him nearly as long to get across the point that he wants them to listen.  After that, though, things go downhill.  It sounds like all he’s doing is backing up Brutus.  Not only does he say he’s not going to praise Caesar, he even goes so far as to suggest that the man was evil.  Maybe he was going to stick in something about how he was also good there at the end, but unless you were really paying attention, how would you ever know?  Looks like Marc Antony could use a little help as well:

“Listen, folks.  I thought Caesar was good, but Brutus says he was bad, and Brutus is honorable, right?  But, see, there’s this will . . .”

If there’s one thing that’s going to get people’s attention at a funeral, it’s a will.  By mentioning it right off the bat, he can ensure that everyone will forget all of Brutus’ high-fallutin’ talk about slavery and tyranny and such.  Marc Antony 1, Brutus 0.

My apologies to those of you who were expecting a picture.  As an author, my moods can shift, and I can find myself much more willing to write one kind of piece than another.  I have found that it is usually best to give in to these whims.  So this week you are getting another edition of Brevity=Wit.  Since the picture storyline isn’t at a cliffhanger this time, I might even be able to get away with it.

This week we are taking a look at another work by the man who so generously provided the name for this project: Julius Caesar (just in case anyone doesn’t understand italics, Caesar is the name of the work, not the man).  Specifically, we will examine a speech by Brutus.  Caesar is dead, killed by Brutus and his conspirators, and the Roman mob is, in a word, pissed.  Brutus needs to calm them down, and since he doesn’t have much in the way of riot gear, he has to use his words.

But Brutus is a senator.  He’s used to giving long-winded speeches to other aristocrats.  He doesn’t understand that the attention span of the average Roman commoner may only be, say, about 140 characters long.  So, though Brutus delivers a fine speech, this is probably all the people heard:

“Romans, countrymen, and lovers!  Hear me for my cause and be silent that you may hear.  Believe me for mine honor and have respect to mine h”

If I was a Roman citizen on the verge of rioting (as all good ancient Roman citizens were), this speech wouldn’t persuade me much.  It sounds like Brutus is trying to dodge the issue.  He doesn’t even mention Caesar.  All he does is tell me to shut up and brag about how honorable he is.  He’s not going to win any friends that way.  After listening to that speech, I don’t think there would be a single member of that crowd who wanted to respect his H.

I feel sorry for Brutus, though.  Controlling the mob is tricky work, and the price for screwing it up is steep.  So I thought I could step in and tell him what he should have said:

“I liked Caesar as much as you did, but I like Rome better.  He was great, but too ambitious.  You want to be slaves?  I didn’t think so.”

Tune in next week for the response!

This week on Brevity=Wit, in honor of the upcoming Halloween holiday, we will be taking a look at Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven.”  Originally this poem had nothing to do with Halloween (it was first published in January and set, if you manage to read all the way to the second stanza, in December).  Because of a certain element of popular culture that was dear to me in my youth, however, I will always associate it with October 31st.

Now I’m sure we all remember the basic story in this poem: guy brooding in his study, raven flies in, says “Nevermore” a lot.  Right?  Nothing really happens.  And to tell us that nothing really happens, Poe requires over 6500 characters!  It’s monstrously inefficient.  The word “nevermore” alone is repeated eleven times.  I mean, come on!  You only have to say it once or twice before we get the idea.  Here’s what we would get if Mr. Poe was cut off before he had a chance to get bogged down in all his trochaic octameter:

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly”

He has time to set the scene, at least.  It’s midnight, the guy is tired, reading a bunch of books.  But that’s all we get.  There’s no way to know if he’s reading in order to distract himself from the soul-crushing despair of losing his lover or if he’s just cramming for tomorrow’s exam.  Maybe he’s a yes-man; all we get to see him do is nod.

It goes without saying, of course, that the title character does not get a chance to appear.

Here’s a version that manages to remain short while still including such key elements as, you know, actually mentioning the raven:

“One night I heard a knocking at my door—no, the window.  It was a raven that reminded me of my onetime lover Lenore.  It said, ‘Nevermore.'”

There you go.  You’ve got the raven, you’ve got the “nevermore.”  What else do you need, really?  Sure, it may lack the driving pattern of internal and external rhymes that makes each stanza surge forward and then pull gently back like a wave lapping on the shore, but is that really what’s important here?  It’s all about the raven, right?

Listen to me, you who read this: it behooves you that you heed this
Don’t be forced now to concede this; these are not some Language Courts
To be shorter is not better. Don’t begrudge every letter
These fool limits only fetter, and put me quite out of sorts
That my Raven might now Twitter puts me highly out of sorts
Quoth the author, “Eat my shorts”

Today on Brevity=Wit we delve into the realm of irreverence and (hopefully not too serious) blasphemy by taking a look at the Ten Commandments.

When the Commandments were first handed down by Moses, coming down from Mt. Sinai bearing in his hands the stone tablets presented to him by almighty God, I have to assume that no one would really have dared to disobey them.  Nowadays, of course, the commandments are disregarded all the time, as anyone who watches the news can attest to.  I have to wonder if the Ten Commandments are regarded so lightly today because they weren’t designed to match the modern attention span.

Let’s see how far we get before people run out of patience, working from Chapter 5 of Deuteronomy in the King James Bible:

“I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. Thou shalt have none other gods before me. Th”

Well there’s your problem.  Moses was too long-winded.  It’s no wonder that the majority of the Commandments are ignored today.  Depending on how you count them, you’re not even able to finish the first one without running over your character limit.  Moses at least gets a chance to start on the next imperative, but all he has time to get out is a “th.”  We can assume it’s going to be a “thou,” but that’s as far as we can guess.  We don’t even know if it’s a “thou shalt” or “thou shalt not.”

So I present this abbreviated version of the Ten Commandments.  Not only does it get in all the important points before everyone stops paying attention, it also allows you to save a fortune on stone tablets:

“I’m God. I’m #1. Respect my name, Sunday, Mom and Dad. No murder, adultery or theft. Don’t betray your neighbor or covet his stuff.”

In the beginning there was the Word.  But the Word was too long and confused modern audiences.  So nowadays we have the W.

Today in our ongoing quest to ensure that nothing is longer than it absolutely has to be, we consider the source of this new project’s title, Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Young Prince Hamlet does not seem to take to heart Polonius’ comment that “Brevity is the soul of wit.”  The statement was not addressed to him specifically, but we all know that Hamlet was skulking all over the castle in his real-again, fictional-again madness, so I’m sure that he heard it, and he appears to ignore it (to be fair, so does Polonius).

For example, let us look at Hamlet’s famous soliloquy from Act III.  Hamlet sets up a problem (whether or not he should kill himself), considers all possible aspects of the two sides, and then comes to a vague, unsatisfying conclusion.  He just goes on and on, without any consideration for the audience, or even for poor Ophelia, who has to stand there on the side of the stage and pretend she can’t hear him.  You’d think if all he was going to accomplish was to demonstrate his indecisiveness that he could at least be quick about it, but no, he drones on for nearly fifteen hundred characters!  Here’s what the speech would have sounded like if someone had had the good sense to cut him off after one hundred forty:

“To be, or not to be?  That is the question—
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take a”

“Take a chill pill,” I think, is the only suitable ending to that last phrase.

These days we already have a standard abbreviation for this speech: we just say “To be or not to be?  That is the question,” and we forget that the rest of the soliloquy even exists.  This solution may be fine for everyday use, but if I were writing for Shakespeare and wanted to include a few more ideas from the original speech (such as, for example, the fact that “To be or not to be?” refers to living or dying, which is often lost today) while still keeping it within a sensible character limit, I would probably say something like this:

“Should I die?  Tough question.  Life is hard, and I can put a stop to that.  Then again, death’s a mystery.  Who knows what happens?  I guess that’s why people like me hesitate.”

There.  We know the problem, we know there’s not going to be any resolution on it any time soon, and we get it all without having to sit there for minute after minute listening to him talk about contumely, bare bodkins, and fardels.

This allows plenty of time for Ophelia to come over and strike up a conversation:

Ophelia: hey ham. sup?
Hamlet: *shrug* thinkin bout death
Ophelia: 😛 geez emo kid. y dont u b a litle more emo?
Hamlet: i dunno. what comes after death? if only I knew . . .
Ophelia: w/e. u can stay here and write some crappy poems or somthing. im gonna go hang out w/rosey and guild. u know, have some actual fun for a change

For there are no slings and arrows more outrageous than the whims of a woman’s heart.

If you readers have any suggestions of famous speeches, poems, or excerpts of literary works that you would like to see covered in this project, please let me know.

Given my continued inability to post pictures, it seems somewhat pedantic of me to continue stubbornly posting stories and asking for your patience.  I have therefore decided to put the “Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words?” project on a temporary (and, from the point of view of anyone closely following the story, poorly timed) hiatus.  Instead this week I present to you another project I have been tinkering with, titled “Brevity=Wit.”

The definition of brevity has changed a lot over the years.  Especially these days, due to the popularity of text messaging and a certain web application, it seems like anything that takes more than two seconds to think up and three seconds to type just isn’t worth writing.  It makes me wonder, however, how the great writers and speakers of the past would have fared if they were subjected to the same harsh 140-character limit that we are.

Today, let us consider the Gettysburg Address.

Given on November 19, 1863, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was considered famous for its brevity.  Preceded by Edward Everett, who gave a speech of two hours and over 13,000 words, Lincoln went up and spoke for approximately two minutes.  Legend has it that Lincoln’s speech was so unexpectedly short that the photographers did not have enough time to get their equipment set up to take pictures of him.

Nowadays, of course, the Gettysburg Address seems almost ridiculously long.  Lincoln’s speech contained well over 1000 characters, if you can believe that.  If he had been cut off at the more reasonable length of 140 characters, the speech would have gone something like this:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the prop”

All Lincoln has time for is a brief history lesson, which he cannot even finish.  “Upon this continent?”  Well, duh.  Where did they think America was founded?  South America?  “Dedicated to the prop?”  What’s he talking about?  The Wright brothers wouldn’t make their famous flight for another forty years.

Now, if I was a speechwriter for Abraham Lincoln, knowing the extremely limited capacity of the modern attention span, I might have suggested he say something more like this:

“87 years ago our fathers made a free nation.  Now we’re at war, and men died here for it.  I can’t say anything greater than what they gave.”

See?  Short and simple.  Fits easily within any standard character limit, takes about ten seconds to say.  Plus you don’t have to waste any of your precious brain power trying to remember that a score is twenty.

Of course, if Lincoln was giving his speech today, taking enough time for the photographers wouldn’t be a problem no matter how quickly he went.  They’d simply snap one of him with their phones and then go back to texting their friends:

“OMG! cant believe prez is talking for 2 whole minutes! i cant wait to get outa here”

Not exactly what you might call the last full measure of devotion.