So Many Exclamation Points!A new style guide says we should pepper our e-mails with them. Really?
Posted Thursday, Aug. 30, 2007, at 2:56 PM ET
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StumbleUponIn truth, the exclamation point is an antidote not to the intrinsic dullness of the medium (as Shipley and Schwalbe suggest) but to the vapid back-and-forths the medium facilitates. For centuries, the act of writing mandated a tremendous exertion of labor, so that scribes committed to the page only texts of supreme import. (Imagine a team of tonsured monks toiling for decades on an illuminated manuscript that read, "WTF … c u l8r?") For centuries, that which was written had to deserve to be written. Today's technology, however, allows us to transmit doodles of thought (e.g. "Running 10 mins late") we never would have deemed worthy of print. It's not that we know we aren't writing well—and so tack on some exclamations!!!—it's that we know what we're saying doesn't deserve to be written at all.
Hence the salvation that exclamation offers. Like 24-hour cable newscasters, we compensate for the unworthiness of our meanings by being emphatic! (A good rule of thumb: The more insignificant the message, the more exclamations it will require.) It's a Freudian reaction formation: I really mean it! I loved the conference! OMG did I LOVE it!!!!!!
In this sense, the abuse of the exclamation mark results from a danger that is intrinsic to e-communication. Sentences were once composed under threat of permanence, and it was this threat—the specter of an unchangeable document forever to be read and reread—that kept a writer honest and endowed the humble meeting of pen and page with the consequence and irrevocability of action. No longer, however. E-communication has divorced the written word from the permanent—we are still "writing" but into a kind of semi-amnesic, digital void, so that actual thought and inflated chat often come at the same falsely loud, and yet easily unheard, volume. (Indeed, because e-mails are so often ephemeral, it is easy to forget how permanent and consequential they can be. Think of Michael "Brownie" Brown, the former FEMA head, whose infamously glib e-mails at the height of the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort open Send.)
To risk sounding like an old schoolmarm: If everything is emphasized, nothing is. Pedestrian e-mails "kicked up a notch" or juiced up on bangers simply contribute to the noise.
But that doesn't mean the exclamation point should be tossed to the scrap heap. In fact, a stable of contemporary writers is waging an ingenious campaign to redeem the devalued punctuation mark. I'm thinking of people like Rebecca Curtis, Sam Lipsyte, and Arthur Bradford, who have all been influenced by Denis Johnson, a modern master of Io. No curmudgeon, Johnson sprinkles exclamation points at a rate that would dizzy Elmore Leonard and with such ingenuity that they do capture a true, and nearly religious, "wonder." Most critically, they attend moments of fragile feeling rather than, say, wild interconnectedness. Moments that might easily escape notice (especially if you have your nose in a phone), and moments of quiet, too. Take Johnson on a woman's scream after receiving news of her husband's death: "What a pair of lungs!" Or Johnson on an MS patient in a hospital: "No more pretending for him!" Or Johnson on pink baby rabbits: "Little feet! Eyelids! Even whiskers!" That's better than any conference I've been to.
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Remarks from the Fray:
To those who complain that more exclamation points and emoticons and explanations are hallmarks of bad writing, I say: you are absolutely correct. This isn't about good writing, this is about good communication. Good writing is objectively such, while good communication depends on an understanding of one's audience. In that vein, text messaging and informal emails simply should not be held to the same level as literature or journalism. There does not need to be poetry in that humble prose. Heck, I think it would be a huge achievement just to get people to spell things out rather than adopt the juvenile "C U L8R" style that always rankles me. I'll trade that for more exclamation points any day.
--Sycamancy
(To reply, click here.)
Plenty of things have been jotted throughout time. If I remember correctly, the original cuneiform was used for quickly-out-of-date accounting such as "how many sheep today?" Making copies of tomes was always the extreme end of the written word.
Besides, the ephemeral nature of the communication is poorly correlated with its volume, since the spoken word is the most fleeting form of communication there is. However, most of us choose our words carefully, expressively, and worry about our impact on others. Oh, and we don't always shout.
My guess is that the ! in text is advocated mostly because the text message and email ARE so gray, and so short. That is, you used to have no need of ! in your prose because you could take the time to contextualize and explain your exciting idea. However, a text message is not a novel, so I can see why there would be good reason to advocate a resurgence of punctuation meant to convey tone. If you want to be understood, what's the alternative?
Oh yeah. Emoticons.
--Mangar
(To reply, click here.)
When my mother - a survivor of NYC Catholic schools during the 1950's - had to write papers for school, only 85% of the grade was about the content. The other 15% was form: keeping her margins even on unruled paper, having neat penmanship, not leaving blots with her fountain pen, and/or making sure her i's were dotted on center and her t's crossed perfectly straight. This, the nuns informed her, was because "only God was perfect". Therefore, she was never going to receive a 100% grade on her papers.
In this situation, excessive !'s probably would have meant she was marked off a few points on her content grade as unnecessary punctuation. And then, if she didn't form them correctly, she'd lose another point per imperfect exclamation point.
If that general rule was in effect for e-mails, I think that would make you think twice before using !'s too often.
--Chasmosaur
(To reply, click here.)
I think it's fair to say that here in the fray, new and old, I've given new life to the vast utility that is the exclamation point by using them so sparsely.
In my reviews of movies I haven't seen, if I'm going to give away a surprise ending or a plot twist that I don't even know about, I'll always put in a !!!Spoiler Alert!!! Saves a lot of time, money, and beaucoup hurt feelings.
When I'm about to say something that should be painfully obvious to one of the many insane retards here, I'll start out with a !!!Newsflash!!! to set just the right tone and hit just the right timbre. Very effective, but somewhat harsh, I know.
Another thing I like to do to torture people here is the old slip-in-an-earworm-when-they-least-suspect-it trick. But I, like Xerxes, am a merciful god. So there have been occasions where I've put in a !!!Earworm Warning!!! or 2. I like to think of this use of the points as "the police tape of prose". And I think it's working.
But when you're busy banging your head against a brick wall of total and complete and ubiquitous obtusity (New word!), it's time to bring out the big guns and fight fire with fire. That's right: I'm talking about unleashing the ALLCAPS hounds. Say, "YOU'RE AND IGNORANT DOOFUS!!!" It never works, obviously, because yelling at an idiot is tantamount to barking at a cat, if you get my meaning (I really hope you get my meaning!). I like to think of this tool as "the mutually assured destruction of the written word".
Many of my posts require sound effects, like [cricket chirp], [cue s/fx of can of worms opening here], [Wink!]. See that exclamation point after the "Wink" there? Don't you think that gives it that tongue-in-cheek color a little hue of playfulness that [wink] just doesn't have? That's what I thought!
I mention the sound effects because when you combine the ALLCAPS and multiple exclamation points for s/fx like [kaBLAAAAAAMO!!!], [kerPLOP!!!] and [kaFWOOOOOSH!!!], it's like you're right there, right there in the middle of all that action, whatever that ends up being. Fun!
I've enjoyed our little discussion on the importance of showing a little bit of restraint when it comes to interjections and what not. An exclamation point is like profanity: The more you use the less subtle their effect. Go now and exclaim no more.
P.S. Great Article!
P.P.S. You, light up my life, you give me hope, to carry on...
P.P.P.S. !!!Earworm Warning!!!
P.P.P.P.S. Oops!
--switters
(To reply, click here.)
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