I think the items you add to the menu screen used to scroll, didn't they?
They don't now (or never did), and it means any description longer than about 11 characters can't be read.
Even the documentation says:
"the title "restart game" will be clearer to the player than just "restart""
But even if you write "restart game", the user will probably only see "restart ga".
What's the story here?
Huh, I don’t know if they ever scrolled? I always keep the text so it fits on the screen because I dont like truncated text
I think they did scroll originally, but I'm not certain.
I don't like truncated text either. But the space is so small, it makes it difficult to write a good description.
I agree, it is very tight. I'll add a feature request to our tracker to add scrolling. 
Must say I agree with Gamma, better to make text fit than to make it scroll
Could you suggest some text I could use with a checkbox for disabling "screen shake"?
At the moment, I just have "screen shake" with the checkbox, but it's too long.
I would worry about it later. That seems like a lazy /amateur thing to say. But it's actually experience that tells me you will probably need more than the max 3 items and you will eventually replace it by a "settings" entry later which goes to a separate screen with lots of space. Maybe use the pd_options library.
But, if you are sure about this, I would suggest "Shake FX'