A message for irate readers: Keep it short, please

ROBERT GARDNER

From time to time, I receive a letter from a reader.

Most of the time, they are short, just a comment saying they knew

somebody I had written about or remembered an event. The exception

was a letter I once got from a lady, four single-spaced pages of

irate language about something I had written. I felt like I’d gotten

the “War and Peace” of letters, which leads to one of my favorite

subjects -- brevity in writing.

While others may think of the invention of gun powder or the

development of the atomic bomb as the most woeful moments in human

history, my own choice is the abandonment of the goose quill pen.

With the effort it took to write with a quill pen -- all that dipping

and blotting -- one thought carefully about each word and wrote with

economy.

People don’t seem to realize the beauty of brevity. On that

immortal day at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln used 279 words in his

address. The man who shared his podium delivered a two-hour memorized

oration. Most of us can recite the Gettysburg Address, or at least

part of it. Can anyone even remember the subject of the other

speaker, or for that matter, his name?

With the invention of the typewriter, the dictating machine and

word-processing computers, brevity has become a thing of the past, a

lost art. When the state of California installed word processors in

the appellate courts, the opinions of my fellow justices increased in

length, if not in substance, by about 20%. Theoretically, when word

processing, one can add or delete with ease, but human nature being

what it is, one seldom deletes.

I am a great believer in writing by hand. If one dictates, one

tends to fall in love with one’s voice. On the Court of Appeal, I

wrote all my opinions in longhand. As a result, mine were the

shortest, although admittedly not the most erudite, opinions in the

state, a matter much appreciated by those who had to read the damned

things. It was only when I could no longer read my own handwriting

that I moved to a typewriter, and my typing is so lousy that I’m

forced to go almost as slowly and, I hope, as precisely as if I were

writing by hand.

Speaking of letters, I sent a guy to prison for rape. For many

years, he sent me a Christmas card with a simple, four-word greeting:

“Wish you were here.” Now that’s the kind of message one remembers.

Another was a simple postcard that said, “You sex-crazed maniac,

how could you turn loose that sex fiend McCracken?” The card came a

few years after I had tried, convicted and sentenced McCracken, a sex

murderer, and he had been duly executed. Still, it was a memorable

missive -- brief, to the point, succinct, even if a few years late.

Somehow, I remember those. The only thing I can remember about the

four-page letter is that the writer was mad. However, there may be

hope. Just as computers have encouraged wordiness, they may also be a

force to counter the problem. I have no experience with e-mail, but I

have been told that more and more people communicate by this method

and that such communications are short and to the point. If that’s

the case, then I may have to look into it, because I can’t face

another four-page, single-spaced letter. Not at my age.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge.

His column runs Tuesdays.