Antecedents
Before the telegraph age military dispatches from overseas were made by letters transported by rapid sailing ships. Clarity and concision were always important in such correspondence, military men having little liking for time-consuming reading. In 1843, a school girl remarked that General Charles James Napier on his having conquered the Indian province of Sindh, should have sent the telegram peccavi, Latin for "I have sinned", as used in the confessional.
The shortest telegram in the English language was from the Irish writer Oscar Wilde. He was living in Paris and he cabled his publisher in Britain to see how his new book was doing. The message read: "?" The publisher cabled back: "!"
Read more about this topic: Telegram Style
Famous quotes containing the word antecedents:
“The conclusion suggested by these arguments might be called the paradox of theorizing. It asserts that if the terms and the general principles of a scientific theory serve their purpose, i. e., if they establish the definite connections among observable phenomena, then they can be dispensed with since any chain of laws and interpretive statements establishing such a connection should then be replaceable by a law which directly links observational antecedents to observational consequents.”
—C.G. (Carl Gustav)