GrammarBlog

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The overuse and misuse of exclamation marks has been previously discussed with enthusiasm and significant literary skill by Dan. 

When I saw this slice of crazy in our flickr group I just had to share it.

P.S. I know it's incorrect to use 'crazy' as a noun. I just like the phrase "slice of crazy", OK?

Labels: exclamation marks, photos, punctuation

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Sent in by my girlfriend, Natalie. After despairing of my pedantry for so long, she now seems to be taking the if-you-can't-beat-them approach.

Anyone for MIX salad?

*UPDATE* Oops, it turns out this wasn't sent to me by my girlfriend after all but my friend and colleague, Paul, who took the picture in St. Pancreas station and sent it to me by MMS. Due to the limitations of my phone I misattributed the source. Tech and social media fans should check out Paul's blog, Blending the Mix.

Labels: exclamation marks, menus, randomised caps, signs, spelling

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Awful use of a comma and an inappropriate exclamation point.

This was brought to my attention by one of our new Twitter friends, Vebelfetzer (a.k.a. Eliza). Why don't you join in the fun challenge of attempting to write grammatically correct prose-bites using only 140 characters? When I joined Twitter I vowed never to stoop to txt spk or 1337 5p34k.

Follow us at http://twitter.com/grammarblog

Apologies for the title of this post, comma puns aren't easy to make up.

Labels: comma, exclamation marks, photos, punctuation, twitter

img src="http://www.grammarblog.co.uk/z_images/banners/v2launch.gif" border="0" title="We've moved to www.grammarblog.co.uk" alt="We've moved to www.grammarblog.co.uk" /> ‘Exclamation Mark: n. a punctuation mark (!) indicating an exclamation.’ ‘Exclamation: n. a sudden cry or remark expressing surprise, strong emotion, or pain.’ Not my words, reader, the words of the Oxford English Dictionary.

The exclamation mark does, obviously, have its purposes. ‘Stop!’ on a sign prohibiting you from entering the pilot’s cabin on an aeroplane or a staff-only area in a brothel is perfectly acceptable (unless you’ve paid extra to enter the staff-only area, so to speak); in a piece of literature, a man who is rapidly sinking into a vat of cement is entitled to cry ‘help!’; and a camping store advertising its sale in what it hopes is an amusing way is, if I’m feeling kind, justified in displaying posters bearing the words ‘Now is the Summer of our Discount Tents!’

I would estimate, though, that only around 4% of exclamation marks are being used correctly. Misappropriations are everywhere: ‘Hello!’, someone writes to me in a text message, ‘How are you?!’ I try to imagine these words and punctuation marks being spoken, but how do you exclaim ‘hello’ or ask someone how they are in a sudden and surprising manner? I suppose you could wait around a corner and then jump out at them whilst wearing some harrowing apparel such as an Adrian Chiles mask.

The ubiquity of this misuse is not merely in private exchanges. ‘Newspapers!’ reads a sign at the newsagent’s (I’m glad it did though, I had gone in for a haircut). ‘Menu!’, I read on a blackboard outside a pub, as if we’re living in Moscow in 1989 and no-one has seen any bread for eight weeks.

And then there is multiple use. Multiple bloody use. A bookmark from a library tells me to ‘Take care!!’. It’s as if they’re saying, ‘no, we really do mean it’. But what exactly do they mean? Are they being sarcastic? In reality, are they saying I shouldn’t take care - I should cross the road in front of a bus or eat a Rustlers beefburger?

At least the library restricted themselves to just two exclamation marks. I’ve seen anything up to 11 in a row in emails, and it isn’t nice. The people who exclaim with such gay abandon should just give up and have the words ‘LOOK I’M MAD, ME’ tattooed in red onto their foreheads.

The Super Furry Animals were close to naming their fifth studio album ‘The Text Message is Ruining the Traditional Pub Quiz’. I wish to assert that misuse of the exclamation mark is ruining the ability to exclaim. Very soon people will think the ‘stop!’ signs are just a bit of a laugh, as the exclamation mark becomes merely a new version of the full-stop. In short, it will be overused into normality.

What I suggest is that each British citizen be restricted to the use of five exclamation marks per year.

Honestly, you really don’t need any more than that. Trust me!

Labels: exclamation marks, punctuation