On Wed, 19 May 2004 16:33:18 +1000, David Strike
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>On Wednesday, May 19, 2004 1:30 PM Mark Bishop wrote:
>
>>> Reef Fish wrote:
>> > Henceforth, I must reference Mark as Mark B, until some other Mark B
>> > shows up.  :-)
>
>> Mark B.
>
>G'Day, Mark.  Mate!  If brevity is the soul of wit then you need to start
>posting more - you'll find a receptive audience!  :-)))
>
>Strike


Speaking of Shakespeare and "Brevity is the soul of wit", Good Ole Will
must be the predecessor of the modern Rumsfeld:

o  Do as I say, and not as I do.    :-)

Shakespeare's "Hamlet" has 4,042 lines and 29,551 words.

Then there's the Henry V sololiguy that was so long and boring
that it must have motivated Charles Dickens to top it by writing
the longest sentence in his first sentence in "A Tale of Two
Cities".

Sir Winston Churchill certainly has a healthy "soul of wit", when
confronted by a lady who berated his drunkeness, said, "Madam,
by morning, I'll be sober;  but you'll still be ugly,"  wrote
his 6-volume Memoire of World War II, which is not exactly "brief". :-)



Elsewhere:   http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art12807.asp

*>  Brevity is the Soul of Wit

*>  It's been said that to say something well you need to be concise.
*>  Just compare how well famous documents compare with a simple
^>  document from the US Government!

This chap couldn't have chosen worse examples for his first two entries:



*>  Pythagorean theorem: 24 words

The square of the hypothenuse of a right triangle is the sum
of the squares of the other two sides.  (20 words)

Since "hypothenuse" already implied a right-angled triangle,

   #> Variant(s): also hy·poth·e·nuse  /-'pä-th&n-/
   #> 1 : the side of a right-angled triangle that is opposite
      the right angle

The 20-word pedantic statement can further be reduced to 15 words:

The square of the hypothenuse is the sum of the squares of the other sides.

That's brevity only for the English-language pedants.

Confucius say, "Hypothenuse squared equal sum of squares of other sides."
(9 words)

Which is slightly more brief than "Squaw on the hippopotamus is worth
sum of Squaws on other Hides." (12 words; a mnemonic joke version)


*>  The Lord's Prayer: 66 words

66 superfluous words!  According to the Bible, that the Lord already
knows what you'll pray before you say it, flaming the Pharisees (MANY
of today's Sunday Church-goers) that one should pray in one's closet
rather than standing in front of public gathering places and "pray"
to impress others, rather than for the sake of praying.

Ooops.  Sorry for delivering one of my Sunday Sermons a bit early.  :-)

-- Bob.