I think Rob Neyer did a quick study like this not too long ago -- and I'm sure many others have as well. But, well, you certainly know the famous story about writing a long letter, a story that has been attributed to many people. Somebody wrote a very long letter. "If I had more time," Benjamin Franklin or Blaise Pascal or Woodrow Wilson or Mark Twain or someone else ended that letter, "I would have made it shorter."