Blah, blah, blah!

No one has ever accused me of being too succinct.  And I am the first to admit that I have a tendency to over-explain things or to use more words or sentences than are necessary to make my point.

To illustrate my point, let’s examine the two sentences above.  In the second sentence I wrote, “...I have a tendency to...” (five words), when I could have written just “I tend to” (three words).  Or rather than use either, I could simply have said, “...I over-explain things....”  In fact, the second half of the second sentence, starting with “...or to use more words or sentences...” is completely uncalled-for because it’s just a further explanation of the act of over-explaining.  Totally redundant.  Thus, my second sentence could simply have been, “And I am the first to admit that I over-explain things.”  Period; end of sentence.

And was it really necessary to start the second sentence with “And”?  Is it even proper English to start a sentence with a conjunction?

Come to think of it, the entire second sentence was totally unnecessary, as it essentially said the same thing as the first sentence...only with more words.  Do you see what my problem is?

But I digress.  Recognizing this tendency I have to use too many words in my blog posts, I have decided to exercise a greater economy of words going forward.  Whereas my previous posts each typically logged between 600 and 900 words (and occasionally even more), starting right now I will endeavor to limit my blog posts to between 300 and 450 words, making it easier and quicker for my regular readers to digest my observations, wit, and wisdom in smaller, more concise, bite-sized chunks.

Damn, there I go again.  Smaller...more concise...bite-sized.  Totally redundant.

Reducing the length of my posts by half is clearly going to be a challenge for me.  By the time I get to the end of this sentence, this post will have already reached greater than 330 words.  Thus, I’m more than two-thirds through my new, self-imposed maximum number of words (450) for a blog post and I haven’t really said much of anything at all.

I’m sure some might argue that even my fully completed, 600 to 900+ word posts don’t say much of anything at all.  Yet I remain undeterred because I, for one, find my posts to be highly informative, humorous, and entertaining.  Re-reading them occasionally causes me to actually laugh out loud.  Seriously.

I may be the only person who feels that way, but given the size of my audience, I represent a very significant percentage of my readership.  And since I enjoy the creative process involved in composing my blog posts, I will continue to post to this blog until I run out of topics on which to write.  Yeah, like that’s gonna happen.

But what I really want to discuss today is....  Wait!  I’m so sorry.  I’m already at 490 words, 40 more than my newly imposed maximum.  This economy of words shtick is going to be tough.

I’ll try to be more succinct on my next posting.

Comments

[Sandy]

Cute blog! You're lucky you find yourself so entertaining....cuts the need for other sources of entertainment which should help you save some money. Guess I'll go shopping to entertain myself.

[Doobster]

Ah, the loneliness of the long distance blogger.