Try replacing the main loop in your code with:

my $patt = join('|', map {"(\Q$_\E)"} @text_remove);
my @tmp;
s/^$patt//o ? $tmp[-1] .= $_ : push(@tmp,$_) for @xlate_data;
@xlate_data = @tmp;
[download]

Sorry, I golfed it a bit....

Update: Ok, slight explanation....

We generate a pattern that will match all (any??) of the elements in @text_remove. In general, this is better than looping over each pattern individually. For one thing, it allows you to use the /o modifier to avoid recompiling the regex over and over again.

We then loop through the @xlate_data array looking for this pattern. If we find it, we lop off whatever matched and glue whats left onto the last field in our temporary array (thats what $tmp[-1] .= $_ does). On the other hand, without a match we simple push the value onto the temporary array.

Finally we overwrite @xlate_data with the @tmp array. This probably isn't how I would have coded it, but since the answer overwrites the data in the original script, I did it here as well. (I also already munged @xlate_data inplace, since I knew I was going to trash it anyway)

-Blake