adjective
(of a person, speech, or style of writing) using very few words : his laconic reply suggested a lack of interest in the topic.
[Edmund says] “If I write, I will say whatever you wish me; but I do not, at present, foresee any occasion for writing.”This passage reminds me of that Ursula Leguin essay from "Thought Wave in the Mind" where she talks about Hemingway's sparse sentences being "very short and manly," or something like that.
[Mary says] “No, I dare say, nor if he were to be gone a twelvemonth, would you ever write to him, nor he to you, if it could be helped. The occasion would never be foreseen. What strange creatures brothers are! You would not write to each other but upon the most urgent necessity in the world; and when obliged to take up the pen to say that such a horse is ill, or such a relation dead, it is done in the fewest possible words. You have but one style among you. I know it perfectly. Henry, who is in every other respect exactly what a brother should be, who loves me, consults me, confides in me, and will talk to me by the hour together, has never yet turned the page in a letter; and very often it is nothing more than—’Dear Mary, I am just arrived. Bath seems full, and everything as usual. Yours sincerely.’ That is the true manly style; that is a complete brother’s letter.”
- Mansfield Park, Chapter VI
This idea that men are reserved with their words when writing (and, implicitly, that women are more liberal) sticks out to me, if for no other reason than because my girlfriend has called my writing terse, whereas her writing is absolutely anything but.
Where does this generalization about the differences between the writing styles of men and women first enter the history of ideas? How much currency does this idea of the laconic male-writer have today?
No comments:
Post a Comment