So much can be said by saying so little. Conversely, so little can be said by saying so much. Shakespeare, the ultimate wordsmith, says it all in “Brevity is the soul of wit.” Single sentences without qualifiers and one liners, charged with the power of truth, can convey more than elaborate recitals. There is beauty in spare sentences.
Ernest Hemingway was the archetypal economist of words who begrudged every adjective, every redundant word. His style was aggressive minimalism, “a deliberate omission, the tension of withheld information”. This is the iceberg theory of Hemingway — the tip of the iceberg is only a fraction of the submerged theme, leaving the door open to surmise and possibility.
Hemingway was supposed to have written the shortest story in the world, an extreme example of flash fiction. His purported authorship was on account of a lunch-table wager. And the story is, “For sale. Baby shoes never worn.”
The author of America’s greatest speech, Abraham Lincoln, is known for the eloquence and precision with which he delivered the Gettysburg Address of fewer than 300 words. His famous words “government of the people, by the people, for the people” is a deft definition of democracy. “It wasn’t by accident that the Gettysburg Address was so short,” Hemingway said.
In one of his great speeches after the Battle of Britain during the Second World War, Winston Churchill said, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few,” acknowledging a nation’s debt to the Royal Air Force in a few telling words.
Neil Armstrong, the first man to step on the moon, said, “One small step for man, a giant leap for mankind.”
When Satya Nadella was announced as Microsoft’s chief, a newspaper carried the headline, “India makes a power point”. Bill Gates, when asked about leadership, had said, “Leadership was empowering others.”
When Christ was asked whether Jews should pay taxes to Caesar, his reply was one of classic simplicity: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, Render unto God the things that are God’s.”
When Shakespeare said in Othello, “The pity of it all Iago, the pity of it all,” he was moaning the tragedy of epic proportions that rose out of motiveless malice. Pithy nuggets of wisdom empowering an idea.
A young schoolgirl in a competition on defining love said, “Love is crossing your fingers when he is crossing the street.” In essence, what is love if not an overwhelming concern for the other? A small schoolboy was asked to write an essay on a game of cricket. He signed off jauntily, “Rain. No game.” So much for creativity!
Samuel Becket says “Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness’.
In fact there are also times when nothing one can say is as effective as saying nothing. Silence is sacred, not to be desecrated with unnecessary verbiage. Paring down sentences and sentiments is worthwhile in a fast-paced world where time and life are at a premium.
sudhadevi_nayak@yahoo.com
