TASK DEFINITION: Given a text, write a compressed version of it in a single sentence.
PROBLEM: Asked how to respond to a rival company's most recent gambit, the well-dressed man looks out of the window of his lavish New York office and says simply, "Napalm."

SOLUTION: Asked how to respond to a rival's gambit, the man looks out of the window of his lavish New York office and says, "Napalm"

PROBLEM: In the absence of political unification, it was the universities that awakened the national consciousness. Scholars traveling across the country needed a common tongue beyond the elitist Latin to break through the barriers of regional dialects.

SOLUTION: It was the universities that awakened the national consciousness. Scholars traveling across the country needed a common tongue.

PROBLEM: "I should have thought that 'innovative' might have been a better gloss, and one must take account, too, that it was originally (and still is for those who have any sensitivity for the word) cynically facetious."

SOLUTION:
I thought that innovative might have been better, that it was originally cynically facetious.