Amuse-bouche: « Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte. »

“I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”

– Blaise Pascal

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Today’s Wonderful Word: “concision.”

Definition: marked by brevity of expression or statement; free from all elaboration and superfluous detail; a writing style which eliminates redundancy

Etymology: late 14c., “a cutting away, mutilation,” also, from 16c., “circumcision,” from Late Latin concisionem (nominative concisio) “a separation into divisions, a mutilation,” literally “a cutting up,” noun of action from past participle stem of Latin concidere “to cut off, cut up, cut through, cut to pieces,” from assimilated form of com-, here perhaps an intensive prefix (see con-), + caedere “to cut” (from PIE root *kae-id- “to strike”). From 18c. it began to be used in the sense of conciseness (q.v.).

First drafts aren’t always concise. Cut out all the fluff in subsequent drafts, and soon you’ll have a tightly packed and neatly constructed work of art. The challenge is maintaining integrity after revisions.

The above definition and etymology of “concision” are not very concise, for example. The above definition and etymology of “concision” are not very concise, for example. If I were to rewrite the etymology part using more concision, I may say something like, “from 14^th– to 16^th-century Latin, ‘a cutting away’ or ‘a cutting up,’ used for the first time in the sense of conciseness in the 18^th century.”

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Answer to Saturday’s riddle:

The hiker who takes a pear is named Each.

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