COLUMN What About Bob?

Author: Bob Wainwright

Woodrow Wilson once said, "If I am to speak 10 minutes, I need a week for preparation; if 15 minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now." I came across this quotation the other day, and found myself immediately intrigued.
I wondered if this meant that President Wilson would have needed months of planning to ask such a simple question as "Honey, where did you put the toothpaste?" After careful consideration, however, I realized that President Wilson was actually alluding to the power of brevity.
What an interesting concept! Few words are somehow greater than many? How could this be true? I always thought that smart people said more than others. In fact, I thought it was their ability to say more that made them smart in the first place.
So, I delved a little deeper into the subject, and what I discovered shook me to my core.
Do you know who delivered the shortest inaugural address? George Washington summed up his thoughts in 135 words. The longest was given in 1841 by William Henry Harrison. After he finished his 9,000-word speech, he promptly caught pneumonia and died a month later. You don't even want to know how his stenographer fared.
And check this out. The Bill of Rights is 463 words. The story of creation in the Bible is only 200 words. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is a mere 271 words. And finally, my column in last week's Campus, which was devoted solely to the concept of owning my own Rally Monkey — 801 words.
Not wanting to believe the evidence that lay so clearly in front of me, I turned to my friend for advice. "Am I too verbose?" I asked. He told me he hadn't the faintest idea what verbose meant.
Not wanting him to know that I didn't either, I scoffed at his stupidity and went to a different friend with the same question.
He told me, "Bob, there was once a lion who killed and devoured a bull. After his meal, he felt so good that he roared and roared. Nearby, a hunter heard the lion and killed him with a single shot. Do you know what the moral of the story is?"
"A good hunter only needs one bullet to get dinner," I answered.
My friend shook his head. "You're not even close. The moral of the story is, if you're full of bull, shut your mouth."
That having been said, don't expect to see the word "continued" below this line.