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.
