The story goes that one of Niels Bohr's friends visited him and found him deeply engrossed in writing an application to a fund. Surprised, the friend asked why it took so long for such a prominent scientist as Bohr to write a simple application. Bohr replied, "I'm trying to make it short, but I haven't had time yet."
This is good research but terrible writing. Why are the instances so out of order? I understand starting with the first English occurrence, but why not go from there to the oldest known occurrence in any language?
