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Tweets, Aphorisms And Adages — When Less Is More

Feb 24, 2017
by Caroline Miller
300 Arguments, adage, aphorism, Rachel Syme, Robert Browning, Sarah Manguso, The Big Short
2 Comments

Not long ago, I had an exchange with an attorney who corrected my use of the  words tactics and strategy.  I replied his distinction was without a difference and pointed out the English Oxford Dictionary (OED) recognized the words as synonyms.   Lawyerly language, as my attorney friend knows, is offensive to me because it assigns narrow meanings to words no ordinary person would consider reasonable. If there is any joy in language, it lies in its richness and its freedom to change and grow like a snowball and even to contradict itself.  Buckle means not only to connect but also to collapse, for example.  A poet rejoices in this richness  A lawyer sours when confronted by it.  Intellectuals can be equally troublesome when they parse language to an undesirable refinement, like ladies who sip tea with their pinkies raised.

I came upon a fine example this refinement the other day in an essay by Rachel Syme.  She drew a distinction between an aphorism and an adage.  While admitting one was a cousin to the other — whatever that means — she defines an aphorism as “a pithy observation that contains a general truth.” (“The Big Short,” by Rachel Syme, New Republic, March 2017, pg. 65.)  Naturally, I ran to my dictionary, like a person in want of a brain, only to discover the OED makes no distinction between the words, seeing them as neither first or second cousins but as synonyms.  I would agree with Syme’s observation that the name of the author who pens an aphorisms often remains attached to it. One would have to be bone drunk and sitting inside a ticking Cuckoo clock, for example, to refrain from thinking, “Shakespeare” at the sounding of the words, “Brevity is the soul of wit.”   Adages differ in that, like folklore, they pass down through generations with no author in mind. 

Courtesy of google.com

Symes ruminates about aphorisms as part of her review of a new book, 300 Arguments by Sarah Manguso.  In 90 pages, the author boils down her life into  a series of  terse expressions: “Worry is impatience for the next horror”; “I fret about my lost scarf.  Then I miss my flight.  The scarf is no longer a problem”; “Happiness begins to deteriorate once it is named.”

Manguso’s aphorisms are sharp, like tweets penned with a dagger.  Her ability to sum up her existence in tight terms would be less entertaining if those observations were particular to her, rather than universal.  But they are universal which makes them interesting far beyond much of the  lint that floats around the internet.  Lint is what Syme brilliantly describes  the excess verbiage to be found in places like social media.  After the rants, diatribes and the tweets to which we are exposed, she points out Manguso is a writer who stabs truth through the heart while paying homage to Robert Browning’s aphorism,  “Less is More.”

Brevity in writing is a skill I admire and Syme’s essay is timely.  I’ve written a memoir of 140 pages about my four years abroad.  That’s small for a book.  Should I pad the pages?  Or should I heed the wisdom of the poet?  I’ve decided to  side with Browning. A serious writer knows when to quit.

 

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2 Comments
  1. Chuck February 24, 2017 at 8:56 am Reply
    When a word or term can reasonably be interpreted to mean one of two things, there is an ambiguity. Other than intentionally creating an ambiguity for stylistic purposes, careful writers avoid ambiguities so as to insure that their readers know what they mean. As for lawyers, especially those who make a nice living litigating commercial contract disputes, ambiguities are mother's milk. Without imprecise contractual language to fight over they'd have to find something else to do.
    • Caroline Miller February 24, 2017 at 10:02 am Reply
      And yet, with or without lawyers, we have lived with these ambiguities of centuries and managed to communicate. As for the lawyers, as you point out, they have made a nice living from the richness of language. Glad it works out for the artists and the attorneys.

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Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Portland, Oregon author Caroline Miller had distinguished careers as an educator, union president, elected official and artist/advocate.

Her play, Woman on the Scarlet Beast, was performed at the Post5 Theatre, Portland, OR, January/February 2015

Caroline published a serialized novelette, Marie Eau-Claire, on the website, The Colored Lens.  She also published the story Gustav Pavel,  a parable about ordinary lives, choice and alternate potential, on the website Fixional.co.

Caroline has published four novels

  • Ballet Noir
  • Trompe l’Oeil
  • Gothic Spring
  • Heart Land

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