Anton Pavlovich Chekhov once remarked: "Brevity is the sister of talent." And since then this ambiguous phrase has come to mean the measure of talent in general, at least in the eyes of the average man. The matter was further complicated by the fact that Chekhov himself never wrote novels, so he could not refute what he said or indicate to people the situational truth. However, the question of what is concise speech, and not a Russian classic at all, has come to our attention today.
Definition
Let's start with the fact that, as always, let's look into the explanatory dictionary. Of course, there is no phrase “laconic speech” in it, but there is an adjective “laconic”, and it means the following: “characterized by laconicism, laconicism”. And laconicism, in turn, is "brevity and clarity of presentation."
Thus, the desired phrase can be defined as "speech aimed at brevity, conciseness." In other words, people professing laconicism are not prone to verbosity and spreading thought through the tree. Everything is clear and to the point.
Origin
We owe this phenomenon to Laconia. A wide circle of readers is an unfamiliar name, but almost everyone knows the city, or rather, the policy of Sparta. And you can’t say that Hollywood products pursue only mercantile purposes, sometimes it also forms the population. So, Sparta was in the space of this region of Ancient Greece.
Laconicism and its application
It is foolish to ask now what concise speech is, because most businessmen believe that it is she who is the key to achieving the goals. And it’s true if a person really controls something. Imagine if at a meeting, before moving on to specific tasks, they will quote Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche or Hegel. Yes, it would be fun and slightly absurd, but it would not be relevant.
Why, then, is laconicism elevated to the absolute now? Everything is very simple: the model in which it is believed that a person is a product on the market is extremely popular, and even if he sells only himself, he must do it quickly, that is, fit the maximum amount of meaning in the minimum number of words.
Such a model has a right to exist, and it is really important for her to know what laconic speech is. Otherwise, a person will not be able to successfully function in the market space. But let's say a secret, there are deserters who somehow manage to live without regard to success. Which, of course, does not color them.
To summarize: laconicism is good when it comes to meeting at an enterprise, but when it comes to fiction, this principle does not always work, regardless of whether a person knows what laconic speech is or not.
“Brevity is the sister of talent, but the stepmother of the fee”
This wonderful quote is attributed to the rumor to Alexander Petrovich Svobodin, playwright, theater critic and theater critic. He left this world not so long ago, only in 1999.
Many people had to hear this phrase, but the great literary figures of the past and present would have subscribed to it. For example, it is known that Dumas and Balzac were paid, ashamed to say, for the volume (per word), so their novels are so impressive that in modern conditions it makes reading difficult when you want to get the aesthetic effect as quickly as possible and especially without straining.
Thomas Wulf was paid for the work, but he wrote one large canvas, which only editors could divide into 4 huge novels. Favorite audience Stephen King also rarely stops at a volume of 300 pages, he loves to write large books. Our compatriot Viktor Pelevin does not want to get rid of his regular reader with collections of stories and has recently provided him with medium-sized novels annually.
And all these people were either quite successful, or are in demand by the market to this day. Not to mention L.N. Tolstoy, who did not need money, was nevertheless quite successful in literature, although Chekhov was envious. But not the brevity of the latter, but the psychological nature of his works.
Goals determine the reception
In fact, it all depends on the goals. That is, if a person reads an article about applied problems, for example, about how to repair shoes cheaply and cheerfully, then he doesn’t need references to the literature of Ancient Greece, the need is completely different. The main thing is that everything should be stated briefly and clearly. Another thing when it comes to a literary phenomenon. And given the price of books (again the influence of the market), I would not want the reader to sell a book of 50 pages for 600 rubles, because this is a kind of scam and an “honest way of taking money from the population.” Although such cases are known, the truth is, the price of such products is somewhere around 250 rubles. That's who understood the question of what laconic speech means, too literally. But let’s leave it, the buyer is also free to choose and think about whether to vote in rubles for a particular composition.