Newspapers are often accused of giving too little information, rarely of giving too much.

Leonard Scott e-mails from Cumbria: “In Monday's Times (February 4) your Africa correspondent, no less, told us about a rebel Chadian offensive 'across the huge, landlocked Central African state, which shares a long frontier with the troubled Sudanese province of Darfur'.

“What is the relevance to the rebellion of Chad being huge and landlocked? I am sure I have read reports of happenings in Essex, Estonia, Delaware and Brunei that failed to tell me that those places are small and beside the sea. Those of us who do not know can always consult an atlas if we think it matters. And why does The Times feel it necessary to tell us that The Sun, Le Soir, Corriere della Sera, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the Washington Post are newspapers? Can there be Times newspaper readers who are unaware of the fact?”

There is an old newspaper adage: “Do not underestimate the intelligence of your readers, but don't overestimate their knowledge.” Surely there can never be too much information in a report. Nobody is keener than I am on making readers get out their dictionaries, encyclopedias and atlases (yes, Jenkins Minor, that means you, and stop slouching); indeed, given the pressures on space on our pages, it is often unavoidable. But if we can save you the trouble, that's even better.

— Young readers and those of a nervous disposition, or French, look away now. “I note that The Times does not print words deemed to be unacceptable for general usage,” writes Jacqueline Eggleton, “and instead inserts asterisks in place of letters to enable readers to draw their own conclusions.

“However, in 'Parents rally behind teacher arrested for slapping' (February 8), the French word connard was printed which, it was then explained, was 'an insult equivalent to c***'. Surely a double standard, or are you endeavouring to improve the French language skills of the nation?”

I have some sympathy with the sub faced with this copy. Few British readers would know what the French word was if we asterisked it - I speak, or once spoke, pretty fluent French, but my girls' grammar stopped short of teaching obscenities. So using connard unasterisked is not nearly so offensive to most delicate British ears as using the English equivalent in full.

As for English obscenities, I have written before about our style: in short, we get a handful of complaints about otiose coyness if we asterisk them, and a sackful of complaints if we boldly spell them out. If those rather unscientific statistics are ever reversed, we will reconsider.

— To receive one complaint about square brackets may be regarded as nitpicking; to receive two looks like a trend. Both Paul Taylor, of Chester, and John Edmonds, of Berkshire, are irritated by a rash of the objects in our columns. The latter offers an example from a report on Tony Blair brushing up his languages to further his European presidential ambitions (February 2): “There are lots of leaders whom I speak to in French like [José María] Aznar or [Silvio] Berlusconi.” Mr Edmonds admonishes: “The effect is ugly and detracts from the natural flow of Mr Blair's statement.”

Perhaps we have been overzealous in applying the old adage referred to above; I'll alert the chief revise editor.

— Michael Davison e-mails from Surrey with two snippets from last Saturday's paper: “ 'Amid growing calls for his resignation, including from members of the general Synod . . . ' 'Mr McShane was a driver for senior republicans, including around the time of the developing peace process . . . '

“Am I alone in deploring this use of 'including' as a rather lazy shorthand, avoiding the proper spelling-out of the sense intended, for example 'including some calls from members' and 'This included the time'?”

You're alone in writing to complain about it, Mr Davison, but that isn't to say that you are wrong. It is indeed lazy. Whereas our references to the forward, instead of foreword, to a book (front page, February 11) and to troopers rather than troupers in a First Night review (also February 11) were just plain wrong. As was the inclusion of the great American singer Ben E. King in last Saturday's Birthdays column; his birthday is in fact on September 28, and this year he will be 70.

May we be the first to congratulate him - twice.