Origin Stories: Laconic
“Origin story” is an expression for a superhero’s backstory — for instance, Superman was born on Krypton just before it was destroyed. Many words also have fascinating origin stories. While English comes largely from Latin (and from Greek, and from Latin through French and Spanish, with some Germanic roots and a bit of Sanskrit, etc.), you’ll find that word usage can change quite bit over a couple thousand years.
Laconic means “using few words, concise.”
The boss was famously laconic; after allowing his employees to present their new plan for an entire hour, he finally responded, Confirmed.
Some related words: reticent and taciturn (not talking much) are often used to describe shy people and do not have the sense of getting the point across efficiently than laconic does. Pithy, however, takes this idea even further “ it means getting the point across in just a few, cleverly-chosen words.
Laconic comes from the Greek place name Laconia, the region in which Sparta (which of course gives us spartan) was located. A famous story has an invading general threatening, If I enter Laconia, I will raze Sparta to the ground. The Spartans laconically replied, If.
