From http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_omalley/20060717.html – which you should go read now, it’s short:
The late Peter Gzowski once held up an envelope from one of his many readers. “This has been written on a word processor,” he told me.
“How can you tell?” I asked.
“It’s prolix,” Gzowski said.
How many of you are also guilty as charged? I think many of us bloggers are similarly challenged. Personally, I’ve been fond of quoting Blaise Pascal, from Lettres provinciales, 16, Dec.14,1656:
Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parceque je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.” (I have only made this letter rather long because I have not had time to make it shorter.)
But perhaps now I will quote Robertson Davies instead:
Business people are very innocent and they are impressed by bulk.