Ms. P. Prinnt,
Sales Director,
“Commas ‘r’ us”,
The Old Slaughterhouse,
Bustards Lane,
Little Wimping,
Norsex.

Dear Ms Prinnt,

I regret to have to complain about the “Giant Size Instant Punctuation Kit” which I recently purchased at considerable expense.

Whilst the full stops have been reasonably easy to use, the commas, and particularly the apostrophes, have very sharp points at the end of their tails. When I was removing an apostrophe from the box, it fell downwards and impaled my foot, causing considerable pain and an unsightly red wound. As a health and safety issue, surely you ought to supply corks to protect the pointed ends of these commas and apostrophes, as one would with, say, a gimlet or a bradawl.

The question-marks, once one had persuaded them not to invert themselves as cup-hooks, have remained reasonably upright; but the same cannot be said for the exclamation-marks, which should be perpendicular but which get tired and gradually droop. With all the publicity these days about this particular dysfunction, surely you could do better in keeping your rods erect.

The foreign punctuation-marks, too, have been far from problem-free. It may be reasonable to offer identical parts to make either an acute or grave accent; but to expect one to prop two of them together to make a circumflex is impractical, because the resultant angle is too shallow to hold together, and the whole tends to collapse like an unsupported roof, causing enough frustration to make one want to throw the entire kit out of the fenệtre…

(Which reminds me that it would also be useful to have a spacing device to enable several full stops to be used to form an ellipsis. As it is they tend to huddle together for company, somewhat ruining the effect.)

As for the sedilla, I attached this to the soft “c” of Française only to find it swinging back and forth like a pendulum, emitting alarming ticking noises reminiscent of a time-bomb. If you expect to export to continental Europe, a sedilla-sedative ought to be included with your kits as standard.

Nor did I fare any better with the tilde, which kept escaping by wriggling away caterpillar-fashion. When I had finally recaptured it and pinned it by its middle, it then took to spinning like a Catherine-wheel. This hyperactive little mark ought to be supplied with Velcro at both ends as a matter of priority. It is no use postponing this modification to mañana.

When I had got used to the brackets clashing noisily together in the box (like cymbals), I was shocked to witness the indiscipline amongst the quotation-marks. Though I carefully positioned them correctly as “66” and “99”, they spontaneously rearranged themselves into two lots of number 69, which caused titters amongst my juvenile friends. To argue that soixante-neuf does not need any accents is no excuse for such behaviour.

Problems, too, with the hyphens. It may be a money-saving idea to put magnets in them, enabling two hyphens to be combined as a dash; but the trouble is that, once united, they are wellnigh impossible to prise apart again, since all of them appear to consider it beneath their dignity to remain as mere hyphens when they aspire to the kudos of cutting a long dash.

Finally, I must draw your attention to the bad behaviour of your colon and semicolon sets: the two dots of the colon appeared to have had an argument; because as soon as the top one was put in place, the bottom dot was repelled away from it and vice versa. By complete contrast, the two elements of the semicolon appear to have fallen madly in love with each other, because, however carefully one tries to keep them the correct distance apart, the one with the tail keeps mounting on top of the other one, and cannot be prised apart for long. I am sure you will realise that, with impressionable youngsters about, this kind of spectacle is wholly inappropriate.

I therefore regret to return the punctuation kit, which please find enclosed, complete with original packings. I should be obliged to receive a refund of the purchase-price of £66.99 including VAT, plus a token £7 to cover postage and the ointment for my injured foot.

Yours sincerely,

Aloysius Q. Pratt.

P.S. If, instead of a cash refund, you would prefer to send me a complimentary copy of the triple DVD boxed set of “Punctuation Gazette Readers’ Wives”, this would be equally acceptable, in which case would you please send it in plain packagings.