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*fewer words, mr. professional writer

jk ... but only sort of

I hope it's a joke. That foolish school child rule should never be mentioned by adults. Unless you think "<" is the "fewer than" symbol...

FWIW, "fewer" is correct because "words" is a countable item. Also, Strunk's advice was, "Omit needless words".

Paraphrasing is hardly a literary crime but yes.

For sure, the only issue is that it completely changes the meaning.