For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle (1 Corinthians 14:8).
In a 2-Minute Explainer, there’s time to utter about 250 words. Consequently, the rule from Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, “omit needless words” is frequently invoked here. My favorite prescription for using fewer words is from Samuel Johnson, who said you should read over your compositions carefully, and whenever you meet a passage you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
Adverbs and adjectives make good candidates for deletion. “Profitable” is an attractive word that is no more attractive accompanied by “highly”.
All of us aspire to hit triples with assertions like “our solution is powerful, scalable and compliant.” But, unless you support the assertion with evidence, it won’t have much impact — much less if you just assert it, then go on to the next subject. With actual evidence, the adjectives and adverbs will be superfluous.
Efforts to fend off potential lawsuits based on the fact that some statement may not be true always and everywhere — expressions like “generally”, “often”, “may help”, — express wishy-washyness without really clarifying anything.
Phrases that are subject to challenge are always good candidates for deletion, e.g., saying you’re the “leading provider” of whatever you provide. Better to say what makes what you provide is better than what the competition provides.
Depolysyllabification
Dickens, Hardy, and Orwell are among the great writers in English who held that English prose can be beefed up by substituting good old “Anglo Saxon” words for degenerate Latin ones: prefer the short (Old English: scort) to the sesquipedalian (Latin for “foot-and-a-half”). This notion sounds a bit jingoistic and quaint now, with nifty words being added to English daily by people all over the planet. Nonetheless, a program of reducing the number of syllables (avoiding words of nine syllables like my coinage “depolysyllabification”) makes sentences seem shorter, even if they aren’t.