Sound Bytes

   "Since brevity is the soul of wit ... I will be brief." -- Shakespeare

   We all treasure one-liners, zingers, sound bytes and Henny Youngman jokes (who?) and the digital generation has grown up with texting and Tweets, with its limit of 140 characters.
   But for all the brevity, few tap into the soul of wit.
   In the Great American Fallacy, bigger equals better, and longer is perceived as more important. Those in the public eye try to master the art of the sound byte, calculating that a wordiness of 20 seconds or less will get them national media exposure.
   For all that, however, sound byte news clips often have little real meaning.
   
   If you sound like you know what you're talking about, people will assume you do. 

   Bluster and bloviation are no substitute for the Three C's: Clear, concise and complete.
   
   Shakespeare, like many good writers, created what are now known as sound bytes. But unlike many in this digital age, he wrote for meaning. Sound and fury, he pointed out, often signify nothing, and are merely tales told by idiots.

   Some few know that a few well chosen words can have more impact than a lengthy bombast.
   Today being the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, it is "altogether fitting and proper," in his phrase, that we consider examples of historic and meaningful sound bytes.
   Lincoln was not the featured speaker at Gettysburg on 19 November 1863. That role went to one of the best known orators in the country at the time, Edward Everett. Going to hear long speeches by famous people was major source of entertainment at the time. Everett, for example, spoke for some two hours, and he was followed by President Lincoln, who took less than five minutes to deliver his remarks totalling 272 words. Yet those 272 words are remembered and cherished today, while Everett's oration is a footnote in history books.
   Great speakers of the 20th Century include Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Consider these phrases: "Their finest hour" (Churchill); "A date which will live in infamy" (Roosevelt); "Ask not what your country can do for you" (Kennedy); "I have a dream") King.
   They all, like great poets, knew the power of words, and they knew that distilling power into palatable bites made for a long life in memory.