“More or Less” or More or Less?”

Language is perhaps our greatest asset.

Understanding others and being understood perhaps our greatest challenge.

Language is the human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, and a language is any specific example of such a system.

Wikipedia

Language has many varieties: human speech and writing; music; mathematics; scientific; programming etc.

In the English language, many words or groupings of words, have different meanings depending on context or punctuation marks.

The title (text) of this article you are reading may have created some curiosity on your part as well as the lead graphic.

More or Less

I use this phrase regularly. Do you?

more or less

Speaking imprecisely; to a certain extent.

"they are more or less a waste of time"

However it’s the last three words in the title that I want to consider right now. And if I keep your attention to the end I think you might agree with me.

More or Less?

I have for many years used as a mantra “Less is More.”

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Leonardo da Vinci

When I started designing training courses for importers, exporters and freight forwarders, both here in Australia and overseas, my goal was to explain complex processes, procedures and documentation in simple terms to my students.

I soon realised this was not as easy as I first thought.

About that time, the film A River Runs Through It (1992) directed and narrated by Robert Redford was released.

The story follows two sons of a Presbyterian minister ,Norman and Paul – one studious and the other rebellious – as they grow up and come of age in the Rocky Mountain region during a span of time from roughly World War I (1917–18) to the early days of the Great Depression (1929–41). Wikipedia

The first scenes of the movie show the two boys in their early years learning to fly fish for trout in the Blackfoot River, with the aid of a metronome.

The two boys were home schooled by their father and is described by Robert Redford (the narrator) from Norman's point of view as follows:

“He taught nothing but reading and writing and being a Scot, believed that the art of writing lay in thrift.”

As Norman shows his hand written essay page to his father, the Reverend Maclean reads it carefully, and then with a red pencil, indicates the changes to be made and says,

Half as long.

And the next time Norman presents his revised page:

Again, half as long.

And on Norman’s final submission:

Good. Now throw it away.

That part of the movie has always stuck in my mind.

Thrift

The quality of using money and other resources carefully and not wastefully.

With a substantial portion of Scots’ blood flowing through my veins, thrift is often top of mind.

When I consider thrift, it is often related to the saving side of the equation, yet I cast my mind less to the other side of the equation. That is the time factor, more time is required to achieve the aimed for thrift.

Time is money.

On balance, is that time so used, worth the thrift achieved?

Then the life and times of Steve Jobs comes to mind and his pithy quote:

That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.

Steve Jobs

Less sometimes requires more

In many communications, a long or longer length is required to achieve better understanding by the reader or the listener. That I acknowledge.

Then I recollect this quote attributed to Albert Einstein or is it a paraphrase”

Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.

IKEA has caused me angst a number of times in regards to simple assembly instructions.

I thought there could have been a little more detail, or perhaps it is my misreading of them.

Let me now hasten to keep this piece as short as possible with an example of two speeches.

Two Speeches – when Less was More

Eulogies or dedications to those departed, can be a challenge for the givers and receivers of those so gathered. I have given a few and emotions play a large part.

Now the event that I allude to came to me recently as a reminder as I listened to a podcast.

It was of a dedication to thousands of fallen soldiers of a fierce battle not here in Australia but in a land across the seas.

The main Oration on the program was delivered by Edward Everett, and lasted two (2) hours and consisted of 13,607 words. There is little record of those words today.

However, after a Hymn was sung, the next item listed on the program was:

Dedicatory Remarks

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln

President of the United States of America

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

November 19, 1863

Words:272 

Duration: Estimate 3 - 10 minutes.

The Gettysburg Address     

Post Script

After John F Kennedy became president in 1961, he asked his own speechwriter, Theodore Sorenson, to explain the success of Gettysburg.

The aide concluded that it was down to Lincoln’s

Brevity,

Simplicity

and his choice of Short Words.

Less is often More.

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