That Little Mark

F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "Cut out all those exclamation marks.  An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own joke."




The exclamation point.  A favorite punctuation mark of every exuberant young girl or despairing teenager.  We use it to show the depth of our feelings, either joy or sorrow.  But many instructors will say that this particular form of punctuation is sadly overused.  I once read an article where the writer said as a rule there should only be one exclamation mark for every *several* hundred words (the exact number escapes me now).  

My personal pet peeve is the growing exclamation garden:  "Wow!  That's so cool!!  I just love this gift!!!  Its the best thing ever!!!!!!!!!!"




I recently came across a website with a blog entry on this topic.  The author writes much more eloquently than me, and I thought I would share his very well articulated thoughts.  Dan Hersam writes on his website, Amidst a Tangled Web:







In emails, there isn't an easy way to convey emotions, inflection of the voice or sarcasm. If you type something in an email, it can easily be misinterpreted since you have little control on how they read it. The use of smiley faces, underlining words to show emphasis and putting comments in parentheses all help to express a thought more clearly. Using these additions has a side affect of augmenting their meaning. When someone uses all uppercase letters, I imagine them screaming their entire message at me. By the same token, when a sentence is followed by an exclamation mark I read the sentence as if the person is exuberantly declaring their message. Two exclamation marks indicate the person is so animated they are falling out of their chair. Three exclamations means they're soiling their pants with excitement. I doubt such extreme levels of enthusiasm are intended by the writer. I also submit that five exclamation marks is right out.









The saying, "Less is more" rings true in the case of exclamation marks. One will suffice for almost any occasion, and forming a small army of exclamation marks to attack your reader with excruciating force is entirely unnecessary. Another appropriate analogy would be the boy who cried exclamation mark. If you use it all the time then people will begin to realize that you really don't have anything to exclaim. They will probably assume you have become addicted to their use and can't stop. One of the worst cases I have ever seen of exclamation excess was in the greeting from a personal ad. Every single sentence ended with an exclamation mark. One would think that generally, people want to make a good impression, but shouldn't that be even more true in a personal ad? What kind of person has so much exuberance bubbling from them that everything they say is an exclamation?






Thankfully, I don't see this type of overuse much in published works.  However, many times I think we simply put an exclamation point at the end of our sentences without really thinking about how often we use them.  It should be our words that show emotion, not the punctuation mark at the end.  We should take the time to find the right set of words to portray our joy or frustration or sorrow.  Then the reader will inject his own emotion as he is reading.  He won't need our exclamation points to tell him to.




Happy writing,







Lonely Hearts ~ a sweet Christian Romance
The Price of Trust ~ Christian Romantic Suspense
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