Concise

[David McWethy]

The best example I know of the use of this word concerned a fairly new and (relatively, of course) inexperienced naval officer who was docking his ship in its home port, and was made more than a bit apprehensive by the knowledge that an admiral's vessel was already tied up and its ranking officer--with a plethora of stripes on his sleeves--would doubtless be watching and evaluating how adroitly the neophyte did the job.

Which, unfortunately, went badly. Rattled, the junior officer required several turns of the helm, with the ship timidly advancing then quickly reversing; turning first to port then to starboard until--after an interminable time--it was safely lashed to the dock's stanchions.

Blanched with trepidation at the diatribe he knew in his heart would be coming from the admiral's launch, he was quite perplexed by the one-word signal sent by semaphore: "Good".

His relief was short lived, however, as this was quickly followed by

To the previous message please add the word "God"!

Doesn't get much more concise than that.

[MTC]

That's very funny, David.

Anecdotally, it brings to mind the embarrassment one LTJG suffered when he moored our nuclear submarine in San Juan, Puerto Rico afer a "modest" 200 "bells," i.e., directions to the engine room to change speed. Not the most concise effort!