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While Ken Smith's suggestion that bad spelling should be accepted rather than corrected has provided a divertissement from the ennui of a long wet summer, I feel that it could be taken further ("Just spell it like it is", 7 August).

Why stop at spelling when punctuation causes so many problems? Think of the difficulties in punctuating the following sentence: "A woman without her man is nothing." Should it be "A woman, without her man, is nothing." Or perhaps "A woman: without her, man is nothing."

Far safer to omit all punctuation except the full stop. As with all end-of-summer offers, caveat emptor remains the best advice.

Dominic Reeve, Professor of coastal dynamics, University of Plymouth.