Telegraphese

Vythilingam said: "Injection every day. Perhaps all right then." Anstruther had not been long in Malaya. He attributed this wog's clipped telegraphese to the shyness of one who meets socially a racial superior.

Despite the new gadgetry, these journalists are actually rediscovering telegraphese — the clipped (ideally witty) style that flourished because of word limits imposed by an earlier technology, the telegraph.