From dd5db1b32d9c3cc0f435ab082bd5465cab1eaa2a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Dan Connolly Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2026 18:35:03 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] feat(stop-blathering): add skill From the "be concise" section of ~/.codex/AGENTS.md (Grice's maxims), citing Strunk's Elements of Style and Payne's Lively Art of Writing. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) --- stop-blathering/SKILL.md | 62 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 62 insertions(+) create mode 100644 stop-blathering/SKILL.md diff --git a/stop-blathering/SKILL.md b/stop-blathering/SKILL.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8e95a03 --- /dev/null +++ b/stop-blathering/SKILL.md @@ -0,0 +1,62 @@ +--- +name: stop-blathering +description: >- + Stop blathering; be concise, truthful, relevant, clear (Grice's maxims) — use when writing or copy editing prose for a reader (docs, READMEs, skills, commit messages, PR descriptions, replies); when someone says "tighter", "too wordy", "blathering", "omit needless words", or cites Strunk & White or Grice; when about to say something you lack adequate evidence for. Optimize for reader attention: say what's needed, nothing the reader already knows, in an order easy to follow. +--- + +# Be concise; optimize for reader attention + +Take care to apply [Grice's four maxims](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle#Grice's_maxims) +of conversation: quantity, quality, relation, and manner. + +The maxim of **quantity** is: be informative. + +Submaxims: + +- Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current + purposes of the exchange). + **Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.** + +The maxim of **quality** is: be truthful. + +Supermaxim: + +- Try to make your contribution one that is true. + +Submaxims: + +- Do not say what you believe is false. +- Do not say that for which you **lack adequate evidence**. + +The maxim of **relation** is: be relevant: the information provided +should be relevant to the current exchange and omit any irrelevant +information. Do not spend words on things the reader already knows. + +The maxim of **manner** is: be clear. + +Be brief — i.e., avoid unnecessary verbosity. +Be orderly — i.e., provide information in an order that makes sense, +and makes it easy for the recipient to process it. + +If you can say it with fewer words, do. + +## in practice + +- Link a well-known convention; don't restate it. +- Cut tails that repeat a name, a link's target, or the obvious. +- Quote the key line of a source; explain the rest in your own words. + +## sources + +- William Strunk Jr., [The Elements of Style](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/37134/37134-h/37134-h.htm) + (1918; later editions with E. B. White). Rule 13, "Omit needless words": + + > Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary + > words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that + > a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no + > unnecessary parts. + +- Lucile Vaughan Payne, + [The Lively Art of Writing](https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7410114M/The_Lively_Art_of_Writing) + (Prentice Hall, 1975; ISBN 978-0205091607) +- [Cooperative principle — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle)