Date:         Wed, 1 Oct 1997 19:30:02 EDT
From: Just me and my altered ego <mbarker@MIT.EDU>
Subject:      FILLER: Between pithy and terse

just for the fun of it...

I love to go awandering, along the webbed lanes, and when I clicked
the OED, I found these words quite strange...

-pithy

-1. Consisting or of the nature of pith; abounding in or full of pith.

-2. fig. Full of strength or vigour; vigorous, strong; of liquor, strong,
-containing much alcohol. Now dial. or Obs.

-3. a. Full of substance or significance; solid, substantial; esp. of
-speech or writing: Containing much matter in few words; expressing
-briefly the pith or substance of a thing; condensed and forcible in
-expression or style; sententious; terse. (Now the prevailing sense.)

-b. transf. of a speaker or writer.

So that which is full of strength, drink, or other substance,
especially speakers and writers who are full of it, may well be
labelled pithy?

-terse

-1. Wiped, brushed; smoothed; clean-cut, sharp-cut; polished,
-burnished; neat, trim, spruce.

-2. fig. Polite, polished, refined, cultured: esp. in reference to
-language. Obs. (passing into 3).

-3. spec. Freed from verbal redundancy; neatly concise; compact
-and pithy in style or language. (The current use.)

-4. Applied to claret; also absol. as sb. Obs.

And the one who is compact and pithy, lacking in that awful verbal
redundancy, concise even...that one we call terse?

(not to be confused with tense or verse)

So if you are full of it, yet well-wiped, ah, delight of our age, you
are both pithy and terse.

between pithy and terse,
the tongue doth twist an twain,
for silly as this may sound,
it's hard to train and worse to strain
with thilly thally and her silly cecils...
she's sore, she's sore, and nevermore...
seashells are for seashores, not for sea serpents...

silly tink