Andy Moyle, who runs the tech on this site, reviewed the word-limit app we have been using last night in response to comments about problems, and specifically that corrections were being counted twice.

He emailed me last night to say:

I noted the issue with word limits after saving, not being the same as the count while posting near the limit. I have updated the plugin so that the issue is fixed.

I hope that overcomes this problem, but can I also make a suggestion, which I very often follow if I am writing a longer comment, and that is to draft it in another app first of all and then copy and paste it in?

Apple Notes works for this, and I am sure there are variants elsewhere, but my favourite is a programme called iA Writer.

This is a minimalist Markdown text editor that is designed to help writers stay focused and distraction-free, which is precisely why I like it. A lot of my work starts life on it. I gather that Joplin is a free alternative, and Google Docs also offers a distraction-free version. There are mobile versions, and I particularly like using programs like this on my phone and iPad.

In these cases, I almost invariably start by dictating my comment first of all. To do so, assuming you are using Apple machines, the mobile keyboard looks something like this:

I have highlighted the microphone key, which it would seem that very few people know about. If you do highlight it then every word that you say will appear on your screen. It is an enormous time saver, but you do need to learn to dictate punctuation, which for very many people feels very odd at first. You will also, of course, need to read through what it has transcribed with care. It does, sometimes, come up with some quite amazing interpretations of the spoken word. This entire paragraph was dictated, almost without any correction being required.