He who praises brevity should make it snappy

 A friend who noticed a note on the virtues of brevity (Nov. 3) suggested that I could use a dose of my own medicine.

That’s fair and just — but it’s also an excuse to add some footnotes:

• Montesquieu, somewhere or another, jokingly suggested that human knowledge would fit in 12 pages, duodecimo.

• Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. contended that any two philosophers could tell each other all they know in two hours.

• When buffalo roamed the Texas Plains and I was a newspaper editor, I suggested that reporters should write three times as many items as they in fact do but keep each item to a-third of the usual length. I was a fan of what was then called a “brief.” The notion is similar to Mike Crittenden’s suggestion that the average person should write five times as many things as he or she actually does, and that each item should be five times shorter than it actually is.

Crittenden’s suggestions can be found here: https://critter.blog/2020/10/02/write-5x-more-but-write-5x-less/?utm_campaign=Recomendo&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter