Why did you write so many words then?

Your second paragraph says nothing.

The letter in question here doesn't have a sentence that is irrelevant to Russells perspective. That's succinct, not "the minimum amount of words communicating anything that might roughly align with a view".

The sentences he writes to explain why he doesn't consider further correspondence fruitful seem genuinely thoughtful to me, they're not fluff or pointless pleasantries for code reasons.

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SideburnsOfDoom 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Why did you write so many words then?

I wasn't claiming to be succinct.

> The sentences he writes to explain why he doesn't consider further correspondence fruitful seem genuinely thoughtful to me

I agree, and I don't say otherwise. I still though don't agree that someone else should characterise the piece as "succinct" because of that thoughtfulness. These are different qualities of writing, are they not?.

> The letter in question here doesn't have a sentence that is irrelevant to Russells perspective.

Yes, it's a good concise argument, to third parties who read it. I see that. It's a different thing to a succinct reply to Mr Mosley - that is what the words "in some ways" mean in the comment above.

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mikestorrent 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

English is a very front-loaded language, information-theoretically, isn't it? Often the first few words of the sentence tells us everything we're going to need to know about the rest of it.

	▲	moritzwarhier 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Yeah but f.. off simply does not say the same thing that his letter says, now matter how succinct. He writes like he assumes good faith, then explains why he thinks that exactly this attempt won't be fruitful, giving a good-faith argument for why Oswald should consider further correspondence fruitless, unless he changes his whole political ideology. That's a lot more than just "I don't want to talk to you and I think badly of you"
	▲	SideburnsOfDoom 3 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> English is a very front-loaded language, information-theoretically, isn't it? It's more that journalism and in other context though, it is good writing style to "not bury the lede", i.e. put the main point upfront. It's a writing choice, not a language feature.
	▲	ghurtado 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The point is that a large percentage of the words in any sentence are there to provide structure, not meaning. Removing those words makes the text more difficult to understand, not easier.