★★★★★ I wish I could give it a million stars. I never used it, but I like making manufacturers of cheap ballpoint pens happy.

★☆☆☆☆ This pen writes absolute rubbish. I tried to write a Spenserian sonnet, and instead it came out with the Century III Chevrolet jingle.

★★★★★ This pen literally saved my life. I literally couldn’t live without it. My doctor plans to publish his technique in the New England Journal of Medicine, so I can’t say much right now, but you should definitely buy a dozen of these if your doctor says you need bypass surgery.

★☆☆☆☆ Yeah, I suppose it writes, but what does it do for the starving children of Eritrea? What, you’re going to write them a letter? Give me a break. This company has no social conscience at all. I will revise my review if the company stops making ballpoint pens and solves the world hunger problem.

★★★☆☆ It’s probably a good one, but I couldn’t figure out how to turn it on. I could probably figure this out if I were smarter. I’m not really the techie type. Maybe they could give it an AI interface.

By Guest Columnist Captain Pleaonasm.

In writing or composing content to be read in print, the superfluous and the unnecessary are the unpardonable transgressions, the unforgivable sins as it were. To keep to the point and not to stray from the topic at hand are essential qualities that cannot be omitted from writing without materially diminishing its quality and leaving it worse than it might otherwise be. From any composition it is necessary to remove whatever does not concern the matter under discussion, so as to leave nothing irrelevant or inapplicable. The first duty of the writer is to trim the fat, so to speak, excising digressions and interpolations that do not advance the argument or move the chain of reasoning forward. It is necessary to avoid useless repetition and reiteration, but rather to stick to the main idea and never deviate from the subject originally chosen. All straying from the main highway into the side paths, all deviation from the straight and true course, is to be shunned and avoided. Whatever is immaterial must be left out, and the writer will omit anything that does not concern the topic he has chosen. Only that which informs and persuades the reader should be allowed to remain, and whatever words and phrases do not tend to that objective must be cut out and left behind, perhaps in a canister or jar, to be used on another occasion when they shall prove material or relevant. Such storage containers may often be obtained, by purchase or other transaction, at local retail establishments in one’s own vicinity, and they often prove useful for storing or containing purposes. It may, however, be advisable or prudent to purchase, at the same time, or at a time not too far removed from the time of the purchase of the original containers, a larger storage container to contain them, so as to (To be continued.)

Captain Pleonasm appears in these pages through the courtesy of the Malt-O-Cod Corporation.