like sanding with fine grain paper

In my inbox this morning:

Dear Dr. [B],

The [journal] Editorial Office has examined your submission entitled [boring paper you don't need to know about] and found it to be incomplete.

* Your submission exceeds our 5,000-word limit. After factoring in 250 words for each of your tables and figures, we have determined that your manuscript is 263 words too long.

Curses. They counted the references and title page.

While I applaud their commitment to brevity (anyone who's ever handed a paper to me to edit can attest that I hack away at technical writing until you can see the bones), this is a real pain. Becuase it's already pretty tight.

Say farewell to adverbs, "as previously reported" and the word "the".