Eliminating Wordiness

Without eliminating any essential information, revise this sentence to make it more concise.

Omar and I, we returned back to the hometown where we both grew up to attend a reunion of the people that we went to high school with ten years ago in the past.

• Omar and I returned to the hometown where we both grew up to attend a reunion of our high school.

• Omar and I returned to our hometown to attend our ten-year high school reunion.

Verbosity or verboseness is speech or writing that uses more words than necessary.

• TRUE

• FALSE

Without eliminating any essential information, revise this sentence to make it more concise.

In view of the fact that it was raining down, orders were given that the game be cancelled.

• The game was cancelled because of rain.

• Because of the rain, orders were given that the game be cancelled.

Without eliminating any essential information, revise this sentence to make it more concise.

At that point in time when Marie was a teenager the basic fundamentals of how to dance were first learned by her.

• When Marie was a teenager, she learned the basic fundamentals of how to dance.

• Marie learned how to dance when she was a teenager.

Without eliminating any essential information, revise this sentence to make it more concise.

The reason that Mary was not able to be in attendance at the hockey game was because she had jury duty.

• Mary was not able to be in attendance at the hockey game was because she had jury duty.

• Because she had jury duty, Mary was not at the hockey game.

Without eliminating any essential information, revise this sentence to make it more concise.

The professor, who was tall and blond, lectured about medieval architecture.

• The professor lectured about medieval architecture.

• The tall, blond professor lectured about medieval architecture.

Without eliminating any essential information, revise this sentence to make it more concise.

The committee discussed the problem for a long time without being able to come to the point where a decision could be reached.

• The committee didn't reach a decision.

• The committee discussed the problem for a long time without reaching a decision.

Without eliminating any essential information, revise this sentence to make it more concise.

The girl who was wearing the colourful bathing suit is my cousin.

• The girl was wearing colourful bathing suit; she is my cousin.

• The girl wearing the colourful bathing suit is my cousin.

Without eliminating any essential information, revise this sentence to make it more concise.

In the cellar, there are four wooden-type crates with nothing in them that might perhaps be used by us for storing paint cans inside of.

• There are four wooden-type crates that might be used to store the paint cans.

• We could store the paint cans in the four wooden crates in the cellar.

Without eliminating any essential information, revise this sentence to make it more concise.

Some sort of identification that would show how old we were was requested of us by the man that collects tickets from people at the movie theatre.

• Some sort of identification was requested by the man that collects tickets at the movie theatre.

• The ticket collector at the movie theatre asked us for identification.