Briefle words · Writing & copy
Throat-clearing
Opening sentences that warm up to the point instead of making it, which the reader loses nothing by skipping.
Say it to an AI
Support chat reply to a customer double-charged $54.99. Be concise: one short apology, then the facts in three sentences: refunded, back on card in 3–5 business days, October box still ships Thursday. No throat-clearing, filler or hedging like 'should hopefully'.
How an expert would brief the stronger version of “Support chat reply”.
See it
Try it as a puzzle →A meal-kit company's support agent replies to a customer who was charged twice.
Why: B's 'Thank you so much for reaching out' and 'I just wanted to let you know that…' come before the customer learns anything.
More ways experts use it
Team-chat announcement to #engineering about Saturday's Postgres 16 upgrade. Open with a bold TL;DR line: when, what users see (read-only), the merge freeze, and who has to act. Then two short paragraphs of detail, no throat-clearing, and point to the thread for the cron list.
Database migration announcement · Writing & copy
Related words
Room 1 · Essentials
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