laconic

When I was taking a class about Viking sagas, the professor told all of us students about the laconic style of writing. To put it simply, it's gearing a story towards a specific audience. The author will expect the reader (listener back then) to already know about certain people and other things specific to the culture.

The audience likes this type of story telling because it makes them feel smarter and a part of a community. They don't want to be retold the family lineage of a chieftain when they already know it.

It's easy to find this in many places today. If I said Bill and Monica, chances are you would instantly know exactly who I was talking about. You use it when talking to friends. There are also lots of acronyms found on the Internet, such as ROFL and LOL.

La*con"ic (?), La*con"ic*al (?), a. [L. Laconicus Laconian, Gr. , fr. a Laconian, Lacedaemonian, or Spartan: cf. F. laconique.]

1.

Expressing much in few words, after the manner of the Laconians or Spartans; brief and pithy; brusque; epigrammatic. In this sense laconic is the usual form.

I grow laconic even beyond laconicism; for sometimes I return only yes, or no, to questionary or petitionary epistles of half a yard long. Pope.

His sense was strong and his style laconic. Welwood.

2.

Laconian; characteristic of, or like, the Spartans; hence, stern or severe; cruel; unflinching.

His head had now felt the razor, his back the rod; all that laconical discipline pleased him well. Bp. Hall.

Syn. -- Short; brief; concise; succinct; sententious; pointed; pithy. -- Laconic, Concise. Concise means without irrelevant or superfluous matter; it is the opposite of diffuse. Laconic means concise with the additional quality of pithiness, sometimes of brusqueness.

 

© Webster 1913.

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La*con"ic, n.

Laconism.

[Obs.]

Addison.

 

© Webster 1913.