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{{quote|"''Omit needless words.''"|''The Elements of Style''}}
[[Self
Witty when effective. Otherwise, dull. Use carefully.
Compare [[Minimalism]], [[Fun
Contrast [[Wall of Text]], [[Purple Prose]].
A [[Terse Talker]] speaks in this.<ref>Brevity doesn't on its own make prose beige. The defining characteristic is that it's unadorned and to the point.</ref>
{{examples}}
== [[Advertising]] ==
* [[Head On]]. Apply directly to the forehead. [[Head On]]. Apply directly to the forehead. [[Head On]]. Apply directly to the forehead.
* [[Burma-Shave]]:
{{quote|''A Miss
''A Curve
''He Kissed the Miss
''And Missed the Curve''
|Burma Shave}}
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]'' Rorschach speaks in short sentences and sentence fragments. His journal doesn't. Must remember to investigate further.
* ''[[Sin City]]''.
{{quote|"Old Man Dies. Young girl lives. Fair trade."}}
==
* An entire subgenre called "[[Script Fic|script format]]", by people who have no idea what a script is.
* ''[[My Immortal]]'', [[Costume Porn|usually.]] Except when discussing <s>Enoby</s> <s>Ebory</s> <s>Ebola</s> Ebony's appearance. Then it turns [[Purple Prose|purple]].
* ''[[Legolas By Laura
* ''[[
{{quote|
* [http://www.fanfiction.net/u/86976/Tuxedo_Mark Mark Moore] a.k.a. Tuxedo Mark writes some of the most boring fanfics imaginable. Here's an example that's sometimes nicknamed "Linda! Laundry!"
{{quote|
Linda put fresh sheets on the bed.
She put the old sheets in the laundry basket. }}
** Reads like fiction written by a computer, once offered in ''The Book of Lists II''.
* ''[[
* Anything by [https://web.archive.org/web/20121022032850/http://www.fanfiction.net/u/923867/S_Michael S-Michael].{{context}}
* ''[[
* ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6089198/1/Daughter_of_Nienor Daughter of Nienor]'': "Only a few months later, the sons of Fëanor came and my world was again destroyed. This time, it was less scary and more sad and annoying, like I was getting used to it."
* A good majority of what [http://www.fanfiction.net/~incendiarist Incendiarist] writes is in this style. Notable is ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6799182/1/ Perennial Tears (Descend In Gems)].'' Because [[Tropes Are Not Bad]].
{{quote|
Voice grating, ethereal.
Prophetic ''nightmare'', she's terrified.
''("What did I say?")'' }}
* ''[[The Darker Knight]]''{{context}}
* ''[[Calvin
* The dialogue of Ms. Aoyama from ''[[Desperately Seeking Ranma]]'' by "Pixelwriter1" drifts between this and [[Spock Speak]], depending on her level of irritation with the person to whom she's speaking.
== [[Literature]] ==
* [[How Not to Write A Novel]].
* [[Ernest Hemingway]] is known for his simple writing style that lacks flowery language and keeps descriptions to a minimum. He called it "the theory of omission" or "[http://www.lostgeneration.com/hemfaq.htm#iceberg The Iceberg Principle]." While some authors criticized him for it, his style is widely considered to be very effective. Hemingway himself attributed his terse style to his training as a foreign correspondent for the ''Toronto Star''. Because he had to communicate from Europe to North America by the expensive medium of cable, it was naturally expected that he should compose his reports to be as succinct as possible while including all the story's salient information.
* Albert Camus' ''[[The Stranger]]''. Done to ape Hemingway, and Meursault is ''supposed'' to be emotionally detached.
* 1940s and 50s pulp novels. Readers wanted books full of plot, with no introspection or relationships. Writers happy to oblige. Iconic example: [[James M. Cain]]. (''[[Double Indemnity]]'', ''[[The Postman Always Rings Twice]]'')
* The ''[[X Wing Series]]'''
** Michael A. Stackpole. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Great]] [[TV Tropes Made of Win Archive|ideas]]. Plain description.
** [[Aaron Allston]], from the same series, is completely different. The shift is a bit shocking, moreso when it switches back.
* Parts of [[
* [[
* ''The Notebook'' (''The Notebook'', ''The Proof'', and ''The Third Lie'', not [[The Notebook|any other novel]]).
* Cash's sections in ''As I Lay Dying'' by William Faulkner. First section is a list of what to do to properly construct Addie's casket. Next two sections, the third being 1 1/2 sentences long, are about the casket's imbalance.
* Victor Hugo sent a letter to his publisher about ''[[Les Misérables (
** According to ''Guinness Book of World Records,'' the shortest correspondence ever.
** "Such brevity is all the more remarkable when one considers that ''[[Les Misérables (
* ''[[Nineteen Eighty
* Charles Bukowski tells you only what you need to know. Very rarely uses multisyllabic words. The times when he breaks those rules are powerful.
* ''[[Candide]]'', by Voltaire. 1,000 page epic, shrunk into 75 pages. Very few details. Quickly advancing.
* [[James Ellroy]]. Early works aren't too bad, but ''White Jazz'' and ''Blood's A Rover'' and after? Every. Sentence. Is. Like. This. Brevity is one thing, but what about bookisms? When told ''White Jazz'' overran its intended length, he took out everything that wasn't
* Shortest Science Fiction Story: "Time stopped. ''[[Mind Screw|Yesterday]]'']" by David Gerrold. Shortest short story ever?
* ''[[The Road]]'' by [[
* "Knock" by [[Fredric Brown]] is an expansion of a 17-word horror story: "The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock at the door." An alternate version ends with: "There was a lock on the door."
* ''Tao Te Ching'', the text of taoism. One hundred pages in book form. Even shorter in the original Chinese. Spoken, modern speakers don't grasp it : the homophones.
* Certain parts of [[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]. Other parts use needless [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness]].
** One could argue, though, that the author is parodying both of these tropes. The default narrator setting is "mockery."
* Much of the ''[[Goosebumps]]'' series is written like this.
* ''[[One Day in
* [[Tropes Are Not Bad|Made into an art form]] by minimalist writers from the 70's/80's. Inspired mainly by Hemingway. Most famous: Raymond Carver.
* [[The Curious Incident of the Dog
** This leads to several instances where the text would really have flowed better if the sentences were joined together. Instead, almost every sentence starts with "and", and almost all of them are short.
** This is, of course, done on purpose as the narrator, Stephen, is autistic and so writes his account in a very logical manner avoiding metaphors and such which he considers to be 'lying'.
* Luis Sepúlveda, faithful follower of Hemingway.
* Ronald Syme wrote ''The Roman Revolution'' like this: a book on the Republic's fall and the Empire's rise.<ref>Roman, not [[Star Wars|another]]</ref> Syme was writing like Tacitus.
** In the words of my Roman History Professor: "Syme wrote in an abrupt, punchy style, writing sentences without verbs, or nouns, or sometimes even words."
* [[Haiku]], the poetic form, is essentially this.
* William Carlos Williams.
{{quote|
'''The Red Wheelbarrow'''
''[[Serious Business|so much depends]] / upon / a red wheel / barrow
''glazed with rain / water / beside the white / chickens.
'''This Is Just To Say'''
''I have eaten / the plums / that were in / the icebox
''and which / you were probably / saving / for breakfast
''Forgive me / they were delicious / so sweet / and so cold }}
* This poem from Ogden Nash:
{{quote|'''Fleas'''
''Adam
''Had 'em }}
** Also:
{{quote|''I...
''Why? }}
* Some poetry by [[Yoko Ono]] :
{{quote|''Water
|''Grapefruit'', 1964 }}
* Epigrams, the Greek ones however could be a lot longer and almost indistinguishable from elegies. Modern ones are only a couple of lines long. The most famous one was written by a Roman named [[Catullus]].
* ''[[Little Witch Academia: The Nonsensical Witch and the Country of the Fairies]]'' contains some basic, straight to the point descriptions even for a light novel. {{quote|
''Sucy grinned at me.''
''I'd seen the eyedropper she was holding.''
''Oh, wow. That was a close one. She'd almost gotten me again.''}}
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
* ''[[Beetleborgs]]'' villain's description of [[Never Recycle Your Schemes|last time they tried this plan]]: "Been there. Done that. Got beat."
* ''[[Screenwipe]]'' once did an hour special on writers. One of them was famed for writing realistic dialogue on [[Eastenders]], his method was to write the sentence and then cut down any unnecessary words. So "See you later, we must do this again some time" would after a series of cuts simply become "Later".
== [[Music]] ==
* [[Jon Lajoie]]'s "I Kill People" rap is written this way to lay bare common rap subjects. Sample lyrics:
{{quote|
''You can't afford expensive things 'cause you ''don't'' have a lot of money
''Ha ha, you want these things, but you cannot afford them
''That means that you're not cool 'cause you're just a poor person'' }}
* The Minutemen's "Take 5, D":
{{quote|
''Walls are drenched
''Both roofer and plumber here
''Had to pay for two service calls'' }}
** Lyrics taken straight from a landlady's note about a leaky bathtub. D. Boon thought Mike Watt's old lyrics for the song were [[Word Salad Lyrics|"too spacey"]]. He changed them to something mundane.
== [[New Media]] ==
* [[Twitter]] posts.
* Simple English Wikipedia. ''[[
* [[Laconic]], especially Laconic entry on Beige Prose. [[Wiki Word]]s. Also, [[CamelCase]].
* SEO copy.
== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
* ''[[Dilbert]]''{{context}}
==
* ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]''. Monster datalog. Inversion of ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'''s [[Purple Prose]] bestiaries. Most monsters described as "Unremarkable".
* ''[[Sam and Max Freelance Police]]'': Agent Superball talks like this, Mr. President. Short sentences. No emotion.
* Mordin Solus in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]''. [[Motor Mouth|Rapid delivery]] tends to mask.
* Sten in ''[[Dragon Age]]'', to the point of annoying the player who wants more information.
* The summon spirit Shadow of the
== [[Web Original]] ==
* ''[[The Gungan Council]]'' for some writers. [[Purple Prose|For others]]...
* [[This Very Wiki]]: Everything in the [[Laconic]] section.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* This is the entire shtick of "Blac-U" Weather forecaster Ollie Williams, from ''[[Family Guy]]''. The man gets his weather forecasting across with this, and a combination of [[No Indoor Voice]].
{{quote|
'''Ollie:''' ''IS' GON' RAIN!''
'''Tom Tucker:''' Thanks Ollie. }}
== [[Real Life]] ==
* {{smallcaps|telegrams charge per word [[Telegraph Gag STOP|STOP]]}}
* {{smallcaps| &their grandchild txt msgs & [[Twitter]] w/chr lmts}}
Line 166 ⟶ 162:
* Low-word-count English reports.
* Manuals, memos.
* Dr. Nakamats' speech upon getting the Ig Nobel Prize for nutrition:
{{quote|
* The Spartans, whose simplicity of speech gave rise to the word "laconic," after their dialect of Greek.
** When Philip II of Macedon threatened them with the message: "If we enter Sparta, we will [[Rape, Pillage and Burn|raze all your buildings and ravage all your women]]," Sparta sent back the answer, "If." Philip, as well as his son [[Alexander the Great]], left Sparta alone.
* [[Calvin Coolidge]], a.k.a. "Silent Cal." Possibly apocryphal example:
{{quote|
'''Coolidge:''' You lose. ''(he leaves the party)'' }}
** Some versions of the story have the party guest being [[Dorothy Parker]].
** Another example:
{{quote|
"Sin", replied Coolidge.
"What did he say about it?"
"He's against it." }}
* Police reports.
* Many military messages
* [http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Simple English Wikipedia].
* [
* Even [[This Wiki]] invokes this trope. See [[Word Cruft]] for details.
* The artificial language [
* Guy Steele once gave a talk on computer language design, [http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/steele.pdf "Growing A Language"], in which he restricted himself to using English words of one syllable, and allowed himself to use longer words only when he defined them first.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Fanfic Tropes]]
[[Category:
[[Category:
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