Talk:Verbosity

Logorrhea

I claim that the author of this article completely fabricated the word "logorrhea" and everything it represents. Please cite some credible references or delete the section entirely.--JAC4 (talk) 21:02, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Webster's says it's been around since 1892. Mittinatten (talk) 20:13, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

"He was led on ruthlessly, horrified by a growing facility, a veritable logorrhoea." - Burgess, Anthony (1968). "Enderby" p37 Wellset (talk) 14:46, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

History

I think a reference to Callimachus' (310/305–240 BC) famous verse "Big book, big evil" (μέγα βιβλίον μέγα κακόν, mega biblion, mega kakon) would be a nice addition to the history section. Mittinatten (talk) 20:09, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Done. The Pokémon Fan (talk) 17:32, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Elegant variation and Sesquipedalianism should be merged to Verbosity. Elegant variation, a term coined by Henry Fowler to describe the over-use of synonyms, and sesquipedalianism, a word derived from Horace to describe the over-use of long words, are both types of verbosity (use of excessive words). The article Verbosity already contains sections on several sub-types. Each of the articles proposed for merger is relatively small (7k and 1k, respectively), and the former consists largely of examples, which need not be merged if they are not well-sourced. Cnilep (talk) 02:33, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Hearing no objection, I merged the pages. I also reorganized the page by "Style advice", "Labels", and "Examples", rather than the previous scheme of sections for each label. I believe this is more in the spirit of WP:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. That is, the article should treat aspects of verbosity as a concept, not synonyms of verbosity as a word. Cnilep (talk) 01:26, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Your changes appear to have been very much justified. I do not hold any objections. CrimsonFlames25 (talk) 00:59, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

POV Issues

There are authors who write verbose prose, and I'm sure there are people who advocate for it. This article takes a very hard line in favour of succinctness that I'm not entirely sure is (completely) justified: At the least, we should include a bit more balance. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 13:17, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

@Hohum and Adam Cuerden: as Hohum indicated, there has been no take-up on this discussion. I think the points that Adam Cuerden raises are valid, though, and should be addressed. I'll look for some sources, and flag possibly interested WikiProjects. I hope others will also contribute. Cnilep (talk) 02:34, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

• The Prose Epitome: Or, Extracts, Elegant, Instructive, and Entertaining, Abridged from the Larger Volumes: Intended to Assist in Introducing Scholars at Classical and Ornamental Knowledge. Messrs. Rivingtons, Longman. 1792. p. 94. I know of none, true or fictitious, that is equally wonderful, interesting, and affecting; or that is told in so short and simple a manner as this [the Old Testament], which is, of all histories, the most authentic.
• Adria Haley (2011). 2012 Novel & Short Story Writer's Market. Penguin Publishing Group. p. 31. ISBN 978-1-59963-242-1. [Sven Birketts argues,] 'There's a danger in being too lean, in losing readers by leaving out clarifying details, or losing the heart of the story by being too terse. There's no vivid world where every character speaks in one-line, three-word sentences.'
• Neil Andrews (2015). Contract Law. Cambridge University Press. p. 607. ISBN 978-1-107-06168-2. A balance must be struck between judgements which are inadequately reasoned and too terse, cryptic and formulaic, and decisions (especially when multiple judgements are given by an appellate court) which are too long and difficult to unravel.

Cnilep (talk) 03:04, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Crilep, contrary to your edit note when reverting my removal of the template because this discussion was stale:

Per WP:MTR

Neutrality-related templates such as {{COI}} (associated with the conflict of interest guideline) or {{POV}} (associated with the neutral point of view policy) strongly recommend that the tagging editor initiate a discussion (generally on the article's talk page) to support the placement of the tag. If the tagging editor failed to do so, or the discussion is dormant, and there is no other support for the template, it can be removed;

I think six years qualifies as dormant. However, your engagement here does refresh the discussion, which is welcome. (Hohum ^@) 08:42, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

User:Handroid7 added the {{essay}} tag with the edit summary, "Verbosity is described in a rather negative way here." Since this appears to be more or less the same issue raised by Adam Cuerden in 2014, and addressed with recent edits, I am removing the tag. If any editors think the article still has issues with personal tone or limited point of view, could you please specify what you think the are? Cnilep (talk) 02:27, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

External links modified

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Logorrh(o)ea: Which one should it be for consistency?

As of 30 October 2018, this article haphazardly mixes "logorrhea" and "logorrhoea", and while it isn't one of Wikipedia's five pillars, consistency is part of the Manual of Style (at least for things like dates), so should this be one or the other? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nameless6144 (talk • contribs) 14:53, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

The Manual of Style calls for consistency within an article, but doesn't insist on any national standard. I believe that logorrhea is chiefly American, while logorrhœa is chiefly British. This article appears to use American spellings in its own text (e.g. Callimachus "rejecting the epic style of poetry in favor of his own"), but see a quotation of the (King James?) Book of Ecclesiastes ("nor yet favour to men of skill"). In addition, since the redirect Logorrhea (rhetoric) uses the o-less spelling, I'm opting for that one. Cnilep (talk) 00:00, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Merger proposal 2022

I'd like to suggest merging in Overwriting (prose). That article was created in 2019 by an editor since banned for CIR, but it's covering the exact same thing as this article; it's just split articles by synonym, in my opinion, like if we had separate articles on fate and destiny (we don't; fate is a redirect to destiny). The Overwriting article has also seen very little activity after an AFD ended "no consensus" but left merging a possibility. Even if there's some quibble to differentiate the two criticisms, then they are at the very least deeply related criticisms of writing, and can be discussed together in a single article. Thoughts? Agreements or objections? SnowFire (talk) 03:01, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Opposite of verbosity

An anonymous user recently changed the lead section from "The opposite of verbosity is plain language" to "The opposite of verbosity is succinctness." Plain language is, however, a term of art and is not the same as the general concept of Concision, to which succinctness redirects. This suggests a question: is there an opposite of verbosity? And if this is a controversial question (as the edit would seem to suggest), then should it be addressed on Wikipedia at all? Perhaps the best thing to do is to remove the (unsourced?) assertion. Cnilep (talk) 03:35, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

"Gobshite" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Gobshite has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 April 14 § Gobshite until a consensus is reached. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 22:59, 14 April 2024 (UTC)