Read This Article!!!

June 29, 2018 9:41 AM

“Once exclamation points were scary and loud; they made you jump,” Heidi Julavits wrote in her 2015 memoir The Folded Clock. “You were in trouble when the exclamation points came out. They were the nunchucks of punctuation. They were a bark, a scold, a gallows sentence. Not any longer. The exclamation point is lighthearted, even whimsical."
posted by Johnny Wallflower (27 comments total)

Thank god for profanity. I look forward to headlines at the end of WWIII.
Holy Shit, Guys! WAR FUCKING OVER!!!
Millions Can't Begin to Fucking Even
posted by es_de_bah at 9:48 AM on June 29, 2018 [9 favorites]

Say it isn’t so!!!
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:04 AM on June 29, 2018

Thank you! I hate it!!
posted by Doleful Creature at 10:19 AM on June 29, 2018

Hyperbole is destroying civilization!
posted by TedW at 10:19 AM on June 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

Wasn’t it Conan who destroyed civilization in the land of Hyperbole?!
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:23 AM on June 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

Also I’m reminded of Terry Pratchett’s use of exclamation marks, which according to this lspace wiki page was premised around the idea that “a person's sanity is inversely proportional to the number of exclamation marks they use!”
posted by Doleful Creature at 10:27 AM on June 29, 2018 [10 favorites]

An ! now indicates the writer would like to have made a joke but could not think of anything funny.
posted by biffa at 10:41 AM on June 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

I've always been on the cutting edge of punctuation!!!!
posted by sammyo at 10:56 AM on June 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

‽
posted by sammyo at 10:58 AM on June 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

I had a writing teacher in high school who said each person got a maximum of three exclamation points per year (in response to something I had written that apparently used up my allotment through the next twenty years). He died recently, and I have wondered if it's the exclamation point proliferation that did him in.
posted by queensissy at 11:03 AM on June 29, 2018 [7 favorites]

I had a gig rewriting MTV News (and other sources) articles for a Canadian music site in the early 2000s, and one of my favourite headlines that my editors just chuckled at (despite the subject matter) and let through was "Ick! R Kelly Indicted for Child Porn!"
posted by yellowbinder at 11:07 AM on June 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

I blame Archie Comics! I read them obsessively as a child, and every sentence ended with an exclamation point or a question mark because of fine detail reproduction limitations with newsprint technology! Once I took a bottle of Liquid Paper to an issue and made every sentence a solemn declaration! It was fucking wild!
posted by infinitewindow at 11:57 AM on June 29, 2018 [8 favorites]

This is fine!!
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:37 PM on June 29, 2018

On a less silly note, over the years I've consciously worked on my personal (i.e. non-work-related) writing style to minimize the use of exclamation points as a lazy way of conveying emotion or intensity in a text-only format. Sometimes the use of bold or italic - if they're available - helps. But I'm not a Trained Writer as such, beyond just standard knowledge of grammar/vocabulary and experience, and I've found it's an unexpectedly difficult task to accurately convey nonverbal meaning in writing. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that most people on the internet have a similar difficulty, leading to the convenient overuse of exclamation points.

I also wonder about whether there's any causal connection between personal and journalistic Bang Overuse, and if so in which direction the causation initially ran.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:47 PM on June 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

My friend broke up with someone once because he used too many exclamation points in text messages. This happened when we were all adults.
posted by Emmy Rae at 1:47 PM on June 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

Oh, hell no. Kids, lawn, etc.

I was thinking along the same lines as infinitewindow. I don't think it happens quite so much today (could be wrong), but comics used just the two marks as noted: ! and ? It took me a long time to notice, but once I did it mildly bugged me. As things do.
posted by bryon at 1:48 PM on June 29, 2018

anecdata: I use exclamation points the following ways:

1. Good idea! I'm in! Yes! etc
2. YAYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3 at a time is unrecognizable to me. I really don't think I would notice if I saw someone like Jonny Sun (I own his book and everything) use only one !

Relating to how they are used in the workplace: I have taken to a pre-send editing read where I remove any extra pleasantries, apologies and exclamations that have gotten loose into my email. Like training myself not to say sorry all the time.
posted by Emmy Rae at 1:58 PM on June 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

I am not naturally an exclamation-point-user, being more prone to long, rambling sentences full of semicolons and em-dashes instead. (One of the reasons I love this place is that my natural writing style fits right in around here, rather than being seen as obnoxiously pretentious.) However over on Instagram—the other main Internet community where I spend time these days—exclamation points are very much de rigeur at least in the circles that I tend to travel in.

Over there, any comment that lacks an exclamation point or two might as well be an insult; exclamation points are used to show positivity and cheer, and at least in my little corner of Insta positivity and cheer are pretty much mandatory. It's not really OK to ever say something negative or neutral about someone else's post—either say something nice or keep your mouth shut. And as it turns out, I really like that! So I try to work an exclamation point (and *gasp* maybe even an emoji or two) into pretty much every comment I make unless I'm talking to someone I'm friends with in real life.

Never more than one per sentence, though—I'm not a barbarian.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 2:22 PM on June 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

I'm really intrigued by the idea mentioned in the article about the exclamation point being a marker of sincerity. I've never thought about that before, but that is something that is sadly needed in social media, email, texts, etc. Think about the difference between seeing these in a text message:
Thanks
Thanks.
Thanks!
Thanks!!!!
The first one is ambiguous and cold. The second one is ambiguous and potentially sarcastic. The third is sincerely a thank you. The forth is sincerely a thank you and maybe also a hug.
posted by OrangeDisk at 3:31 PM on June 29, 2018 [7 favorites]

Exclamation points are OK! It's the neglected & that worries me.
Ampersands for the win!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
posted by BlueHorse at 8:32 PM on June 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Looks like the server has run out of exclamation points after that last comment. You'll have to assemble your own from these IKEA Pøïnts: |||||||||| ..........
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:35 PM on June 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

My Mom was an abuser of Exclamation Points! CAPITALS!! Bold face!!! Double underlines!!! I showed a note from Mom to a co-worker who read it aloud as punctuated, and, yeah, drama. My Mom would have looooved the Blink tag.
posted by theora55 at 8:48 PM on June 29, 2018

The exclamation point is lighthearted, even whimsical.

The two... whimsical!!
The one... even more whimsical!
Oh yeah
posted by flabdablet at 6:19 AM on June 30, 2018

Looks like the server has run out of exclamation points after that last comment. You'll have to assemble your own from these IKEA Pøïnts:

Don’t be a Timothy Dexter, Johnny.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:40 AM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

! - sincere; whimsical, enthusiastic; or "I mean it!"
(!) - calling attention to something, but not freaking out
!!! - alarm; or "I really god-damn mean it!!!", but not freaking out

any other combination of '!'s is freaking the fuck out.
posted by mazola at 8:15 AM on June 30, 2018

Wait, so "!!" is more intense than "!!!"?
posted by overglow at 12:30 AM on July 1, 2018

So! much! more! intense.
posted by flabdablet at 2:08 AM on July 1, 2018 [1 favorite]