Telegram style, telegraph style, telegraphic style or telegraphese describes a clipped way of writing that attempts to abbreviate words and pack as much information into the shortest possible number of words and or characters.
It originated in the telegraph age when telecommunication consisted only of short messages transmitted by hand over the telegraph wire. The telegraph companies charged for their service by the number of words in a message. The style developed to minimize costs but still convey the message clearly and unambiguously.
Related but distinct, is the historical practice of using abbreviations and code words to compress the meaning of phrases into a small set of characters for ease of transmission over a telegraph, a device for transmitting electrical impulses used for communications, introduced from 1839 onwards. The related term cablese describes the style of press messages sent uncoded, but in a highly condensed, Hemingwayesque style, over submarine communications cables. In the U.S. Foreign Service, before the advent of broadband telecommunications, cablese referred to condensed telegraphic messaging that made heavy use of abbreviations and avoided use of definite or indefinite articles, punctuation, and other words unnecessary for comprehension of the message.
A characteristic is the use of the word STOP for a full stop character:
eg t-gram style stop
Read more about Telegram Style: Example, Antecedents, Telegraphic Coded Expressions, Other Languages, See Also
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“The habit some writers indulge in of perpetual quotation is one it behoves lovers of good literature to protest against, for it is an insidious habit which in the end must cloud the stream of thought, or at least check spontaneity. If it be true that le style c’est l’homme, what is likely to happen if l’homme is for ever eking out his own personality with that of some other individual?”
—Dame Ethel Smyth (1858–1944)