The word laconic refers to the Spartan pride in avoiding verbosity.
I still remember an anecdote illustrating an early laconicism. At a parley before a battle, a Persian general attempted to intimidate a Spartan general by boasting: "When our archers shoot, the sun will be darkened by their arrows!" The Spartan general replied: "Good. We will fight in the shade."
When a messenger dispatched by an enemy army announced, "If we enter Laconia, we will raze it to the ground!," the laconic response the Laconians sent back was simply: "If."
Dear AnnaStrophic: I rejoice in your mellowed mood. I posted this where I did because it does not seem to me to fit anywhere else. I cannot see any logic to putting it into Weekly Themes.
The prize must go to General McAuliff during the (1944) Battle of Bulge when the German general told McAuliff he was surrounded and must surrender, McAuliff's immortal reply was : "Nuts!" McAuliff's troops rallied and fought on until relieved.
On December 15, Eisenhower was promoted to the U.S. Army's highest rank, general of the army. The next day Germany began its last offensive, in the Ardennes region of Belgium. The attack caught the Allies by surprise. Badly outnumbered U.S. troops were forced to retreat. The Allied air force, which had won control of the skies, was grounded by bad weather and could not help. The Allies were close to panic. The deep German penetration created a bulge in the Allied lines, giving the battle its name. When Eisenhower called a conference of his senior generals on December 19, they showed up glum and discouraged. He took one look at them and gave an order: "The present situation is to be regarded as one of opportunity for us and not of disaster. There will be only cheerful faces at this conference table." He said that the Germans had come out from behind their fortifications and exposed themselves; now was the time to start a counterattack and catch them in the open. He identified Bastogne, a crossroads in the Ardennes, as the key point to hold and ordered the United States 101st Airborne Division to that town. The Germans surrounded it on all sides with superior forces, but the Americans resisted stubbornly. When the Germans delivered an ultimatum to surrender, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, in command of the town, sent back the famous one-word reply, "Nuts!"
"Eisenhower, Dwight David," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
a) characterized by tufts of hair growing from the ears.
b) of or pertaining to the area at the edges of a tropical lagoon.
c) a fretless stringed instrument of the Renaissance with seven melody strings, six sympathetic strings and two bass strings strung free of the neck.
d) referring to a section of a cone in which the intersecting plane is at an angle greater than 45° to the perpendicular.
e) of or pertaining to a people of ancient Greece who moved into the area now known as Greece from the Caucasus Mountains between the time the Ionians and the Dorians moved in.
f) a mountain range in New Hampshire.
g) a small constellation in the southern hemisphere located between Argo and Ara.
h) the musical mode based on the sixth of the major scale, ranging from the unison to the octave of the major scale.
When the Samians who had been banished by Polycrates came to Sparta, they went to the authorities and made a long speech, in view of the greatness of their need. At the first meeting, the Spartans said in answer that they had forgotten the first words of the request and could not understand the last. After that, the Samians had another meeting with the Spartan government, and this time they said nothing but, carrying a sack, said simply, "The sack needs grain." At this the Spartans answered, "You did not need to say 'sack.' " But they resolved to help the exiled Samians."
Calvin Coolidge was laconic in both private and public statements. He deserves to be remembered for his handling of the strike by Boston Police.
The police of Boston had grievances over pay, hours of work, and working conditions. Receiving little satisfaction from the city, they affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL), and when 19 local police union leaders were suspended from the force, the police voted to strike. Their walkout brought disorder to Boston. Coolidge did not step into the strike until peace had been largely restored, when he took command of the various forces that had been introduced to bring order. He denied the right of the strikers to return to their jobs, and defended the city's and state's actions in a telegram to Samuel Gompers, president of the AFL, in which he asserted: "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time." Coolidge received the acclaim of the nation, including that of President Woodrow Wilson, for meeting a dire threat to public safety, and that fall he was reelected governor.
Another famous Coolidge story. He came back from church one Sunday and his wife, who had not accompanied him, asked, "What was the sermon about?" He replied, "Sin." She asked, "What did he say?" Coolidge replied, "He was against it."
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