Like throwing small bits of wood into a pond and watching ducks try to eat them, being a spelling and grammar snob is a nice thing to fall back on when you’re looking for cost-free enjoyment.

Naturally, misplaced apostrophes and the like do cause anger, but in equal measure errors often engender mirth.

Yesterday, I received an email which contained the words:

“Thank you for your email. I resent the system confirmation, but just in case you don’t receive it…”

What, I thought, has the system confirmation ever done to the sender? Was she so affronted by its failings that she began to harbour murderous thoughts? Did she dream of taking a sledge hammer to the main network computer?

Another classic recently sent to me included the line:

“…needles to say that the hired furniture arrived on time and on specification.”

This reads as if the author is giving a stage direction for a play about diabetes or heroin in which furnishings-obsessed syringes actually perform part of the dialogue.

At the end of the aforementioned email, someone is thanked for “not loosing his composure”. Does this mean he kept a tight rein on his calmness, never letting rigorous pre-stated standards slip?

However, my recent favourite was sent by an old colleague of mine, Steve the Geordie. On being charged with informing local health professionals that a meeting was to be postponed, Steve signed off his email:

“Sorry for any incontinence this may have caused”.

Marvellous.