Good Prose Is A Valuable Asset

Today I received an email from a very nice fellow who, for some reason or another, wants to split $48.5 million bucks with me. "Whoa," I said out loud. "That’ll work!"

So I wanted to send him an email back as fast as I could. But I wanted the email to sound suitable. I wanted it to get across to him that I am an educated and at least a semi intelligent person, not some dumb half-wit who couldn't string three words together if his next quart of moonshine depended on it. Still, I wanted to deliver a comprehendible statement to him as to how I felt concerning his offer.

At the same time, I do know the value of brevity. No one wants to listen to or read some rambling rhetoric, which could just as easily have been expressed with the aforementioned three words. Mark Twain gave the best illustration of the value of brief speech reckoned in dollars.

His story was that when he had listened for five minutes to the preacher telling of the heathen, he wept, and was going to contribute fifty dollars... after ten minutes more of the sermon, he reduced the amount of his prospective contribution to twenty-five dollars... after half an hour more of eloquence, he cut the sum to five dollars. At the end of an hour of oratory when the plate was passed, he stole two dollars.

So I was looking for an intelligent, but brief, dissertation , which would still bring my proclamation across to him clearly and precisely. That doesn’t sound easy, does it?
It’s actually much easier than it sounds. Here is what I came up with.

***
Dear Asshole,
Why don’t you go outside and play a game of ‘Hide And Go Fuck Yourself’?

***

I think I nailed that one.