They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and when we think about languages, this premise is often true. The meaning of a sentence can often be conveyed with only a few words; the rest may result as redundant and boring to the recipients.

Linguistic economy or its tendency towards brevity is a principle inherent to language: based on its primary function of communication, it seeks convenience and the least amount of effort at the phonetic, lexical, morphological and syntactic levels. What are its characteristics and the clearest examples worldwide?