Telegram style

Telegram style, telegraph style, telegraphic style or telegraphese is a clipped way of writing that attempts to abbreviate words and pack as much information into the smallest possible number of words 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, with a maximum of 15 characters per word for a plain-language telegram, and 10 per word for one written in code. 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

Orville Wright's telegram of December 17, 1903 about the first powered flight.

Success four flights thursday morning all against twenty one mile wind started from Level with engine power alone average speed through air thirty one miles longest 57 seconds inform Press home Christmas . Orevelle Wright

Before the telegraph age military dispatches from overseas were made by letters transported by rapid sailing ships. Clarity and concision were often considered important in such correspondence.

An apocryphal story about the briefest correspondence in history has a writer (variously identified as Victor Hugo or Oscar Wilde) inquiring about the sales of his new book by sending the message "?" to his publisher, only to receive "!" in reply.

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