laconic

The audience likes this type of story telling because it makes them feel smarter and a part of a community. They don't want to be retold the family lineage of a chieftain when they already know it.

It's easy to find this in many places today. If I said Bill and Monica, chances are you would instantly know exactly who I was talking about. You use it when talking to friends. There are also lots of acronyms found on the Internet, such as ROFL and LOL.

La*con"ic (?), La*con"ic*al (?), a. [L. Laconicus Laconian, Gr. , fr. a Laconian, Lacedaemonian, or Spartan: cf. F. laconique.]

1.

Expressing much in few words, after the manner of the Laconians or Spartans; brief and pithy; brusque; epigrammatic. In this sense laconic is the usual form.

I grow laconic even beyond laconicism; for sometimes I return only yes, or no, to questionary or petitionary epistles of half a yard long. Pope.

His sense was strong and his style laconic. Welwood.

2.

Laconian; characteristic of, or like, the Spartans; hence, stern or severe; cruel; unflinching.

His head had now felt the razor, his back the rod; all that laconical discipline pleased him well. Bp. Hall.

Syn. -- Short; brief; concise; succinct; sententious; pointed; pithy. -- Laconic, Concise. Concise means without irrelevant or superfluous matter; it is the opposite of diffuse. Laconic means concise with the additional quality of pithiness, sometimes of brusqueness.

© Webster 1913.

La*con"ic, n.

Laconism.

Addison.

© Webster 1913.