Brevity in the Age of Trump & Twitter

A Brief History of Brevity

Donald Trump prefers communicating with the public via Twitter, a messaging service that insists a “tweet” be no longer than 280 characters(that count includes spaces and punctuation). To his critics, this suggests Trump’s inability to have long thoughts or indicates Attention Deficit Disorder. But it is worth noting that brevity, while perhaps unknown in previous presidents, is a genre with a long historical pedigree.

In the 17th Century, the French philosopher Pascal was noted for his “Pensées” or pithy remarks. He said, for example, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” He also famously wrote to a friend: “I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.” (By the way, the shortest letter in the history of Hartford Accident & Indemnity Insurance Company was penned by poet Wallace Stevens who was then a company vice president: “Pay.”)

Certain kinds of remarks are typically short: sayings (“Every dog barks in its own yard”), dictionary entries (in Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary: “Oats. A grain the British give to their livestock and the Irish have for breakfast”), advertising slogans (“You deserve a break today”), Zen koans (“What is the sound of one hand clapping?”), and prophecies (that Trojan…