Brevity, Often the Bane of Southerners

In the south, we like our words to be long and multisyllabic. Saying hello can take eons, and sharing a memory takes almost as long as the subject or event itself. Summaries in family settings and short goodbyes are non-existent.   I remember long summer afternoons sitting under a big oak tree or winter evenings by the fire, listening to an older family member impart stories of days gone by. I never wanted those times to end or to hear a shortened version. But there are times brevity is essential.

I can think of dozens of times I wished someone had the talent to be brief; a high school teacher lecturing on the day before Spring break, an old Baptist preacher greatly extending the altar call before “dinner on the grounds,” a Southern politician filibustering into the night, and almost anyone beginning an uninteresting conversation with, “I’ll be brief.”

Brevity is more of a talent than an art form. Samuel Clemons, better known by his pen name, Mark Twain, was not born in the south but grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, giving him a firsthand understanding of southern communication. He was known for running long when delivering a lecture or giving a speech. But he also understood the occasional need for brevity. He once wrote, “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”  He didn’t invent that thought, but his words get right to the point.

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In 1657 the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote (translation from the French), “I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.”

Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter, “New Experiments and Observations on Electricity Made at Philadelphia in America,” to the Royal Society in London, saying, “I have already made this paper too long, for which I must crave pardon, not having time to make it shorter.”

One of our favorite southerners, Lewis Grizzard, wrote a column for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution from 1977 to 1992. Three or four times a week, he pounded out 750 words and handed them off to his editor, who corrected the copy without accidentally editing out Grizzard’s keen personality. When speaking in public, Lewis Grizzard could be brief or pontificate for hours. He was brief only when necessary. His audience loved him and begged for more.

The best example I could find of the successful use of brevity was the famous Gettysburg address. The sixteenth President, Kentucky-born Abraham Lincoln, delivered 272 words in two minutes to a crowd of 15,000 on November 19, 1863, at the dedication ceremony of the National Cemetery of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. I didn’t realize that another Gettysburg address preceded Mr. Lincoln’s speech that day. Edward Everett was a famous orator, Unitarian pastor, educator, and diplomat from Massachusetts who spoke for two hours that day.

Afterward, he said to Mr. Lincoln, “I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.”

Click here for some interesting facts about Lewis Grizzard

So brevity definitely has its place. My mom was a genius with brevity. To any uncalled-for question I might pose, she simply said, “because I said so!” but each word was drawn out for emphasis in the southern tradition. Brevity is partly a talent honed by experience. It takes time to develop the art of brevity. Sadly, it’s a talent I don’t have. I have watched my family roll their eyes and slump down in their chairs when I began to share memories that I may have told before … more than once … or twice ….  But, their discomfort did not slow down or stop the inevitable longer-than-needed story.

The following are a few, not necessarily southern, references to a prolific talker (being female, I chose to use the male pronoun more than the female):

Ask him the time, and he’ll tell you how to build a watch.

He could talk the hide off a cow.

He’s a manure salesman with a mouth full of samples.

He could talk a gate off its hinges.

He’s as full of wind as a corn-eating horse.

He could talk your ears off.

He could lick a skillet in the kitchen from the front porch.

He’s got tongue enough for ten rows of teeth.

He’d drive a wooden Indian crazy.

He’s a live dictionary.

He’s got a ten-gallon mouth.

Her mouth runs like a boarding house toilet.

Her tongue wags at both ends.

She beats her own gums to death.

She speaks ten words a second with gusts to fifty.

She was vaccinated with a victrola.

I apologize for the length of this article, but I didn’t have time to be brief.