The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1881-06-02
The Brief and the Diffuse.

Brevity is not only the soul Of wit,
says the Galveston Ne,cs, but, ordinarily,
the mark of good common sense. Al
most all good things, however, may be
carried TO extremes, and when newspa-
pers not only become sententious, but
undertake to make a single word do duty
for q paragraph, they often become as
unintelligible, or are liable to be inter
preted in as many ways, a. the oracles
of the weather prophets. Some of the
papers have fallen into the habit of drop
ping into monosyllables, which are un-
ineligible except Immediately where
the facts referred to are already known
AS 'rain, "wind," "dry," sickness"
ga man dead" and the like phrases,
which would barely answer % headlines
An most eases. Thls u . little too much
Of the style which logicians call calegor-
matte, when q single word is capable of
doing duty for sentence, predicate or
proposition, as distinguished from the
ten categories of Aristotle, where the
substance, quality, quantity, relation,
action, passion, time, place, situation,
and habit of the thing described were
given or understood. But there is no
style SO curt as to be Objectionable as
the habit some people have of drawing
everything, uEder and above the earth,
past and present. into every incident
they undertake to relate until the reader
or listener loses all idea of the subject
supposed to be in hand, and like the old
man who was tired of waiting for his
wife to finish counting the beans, calls
on Gabriel to blow his horn and end the
trouble. Widow Bedott gave some ad-
mirable specimens of this diffusive
style, and the central City Item adds the
following:
II seen You looking for an item last
week" said freckled man with small
watery eyes, dashed with blue, to our
local. "Do yer want one now?" -
He was cordially answered in the affirm
ative, and gave in the following testi-
mouy. --.t- 1- 81
Ike Bolivar and me had a marrow
escape from horrible death, which was
prevented by Joe Moran, who first went
to Pixies Peak in '56, and afterward mar
ried into the Runnels family as lived
down by the ford in Steuben County,
York State, where Hi Griffin used to
have his blacksmith shop-and q cussed
| poor man he was to shoe q horse-no
| better'n saloon hummer anyway, and
his poor wife-married one of the Plat
ter gals-who first gave the sack to Jot
Duncan, who run raffs down the Allie
gany, and in winters saved shingles an6
fiddled for dances. Yes, and he was q
hoss to rassel--seen him stand all day
Fourth Of jules In ten-foot ring ant
flop the best man that tackled him, but
he never laid up cent, and seemed to
allus take the world just as easy as lying,
for he was just what Aunt Susan Parker
called shiftless, and iklier old maid'1
Susan didn't bind o shoe in North Ad
ans, Mass.-place where she was raised
and smart why her and "Doc." Ram
say-allus called him 'Doc." ever since
he sucked the rattlesnake pizen outer
Jake Biglow's leg-her and doc
could hoe a rowo of taters in one tine anC
two motions and lay the last weed on tn,
J left side to wunst Thar was . brothe
OF Susan's who peddled corn shelters
and afterward growed Injun seed for
big firm in Sandusky, Ohio-well, hi
name was Wash. Parker-married int
the Biles family down in Tioga County,
-Penn.-got into O scrape, though, witt
another gal" The local gave the mar
rator of this lucid and closely connected
sensation one CHASTITY smile and fed.