Brevity

by Russ Ramsey on December 27, 2008

art-the-word-small.jpgIt has been unintentional, but on several occasions here in the Rabbit Room we’ve discussed the use and power of words, and eventually someone (often this guy) steers the conversation to musing about the difficulty and discipline of brevity– using fewer words for greater impact.  Clearly, I’m only talking a good game here.  Still, I’m fascinated by the discipline of forcing myself to be selective with the words I use.  Here are a few fun links which are committed to the discipline of brevity.

Twentytwowords.com– This is Abraham Piper’s blog. (John’s son)  He calls it an “experiment in getting to the point.”  Each entry is exactly twenty two words long.  The others I’m listing here are ones he listed on his site which I think are super cool.

coolthingsinrandomplaces.com– Just what it sounds like.  (Laura P, commenting below, indicated this link may carry with it some viral badness.  So I took the link down, but the site is still cool.  Thanks for the head’s up, Laura.)

The Big Picture– News, events and oddities from around the world told mainly through images.  Right now you can find one entry dealing with the International Space Station and another dealing with super-microscopic images.  Check them both out and tell me if they both don’t leave you feeling dwarfed by God’s handiwork.  There’s one image of an ice crystal that I can’t get over. (Also, they have a Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar where each day leading to Christmas they post a new image from deep space.)

And last, onesentence.org– true stories told in one sentence.  This is sometimes heart-warming, sometimes incredibly sad, sometimes hilarious, and sometimes a bit, um, PG-13 (but nothing too rough.)  You’ll find moving little gems like: “I had never thought about the importance of my uterus until I was told it had to be removed.”  And this one that made me nod as one who understood perfectly: ”During a romantic dinner away from the kids, I looked down at my hand and saw that there was poop on my diamond.”  Okay, one more. “The day my Mother accidentally left my little brother at the dog pound gave me the only self-esteem boost I would ever need.”

Enjoy.