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This Week’s WORDS are dedicated to Grandma, er, grammar and National Grammar Day (March 4, 2010... March Fourth!)
The Exclamation Point!
“The exclamation point is greatly overused!
One could even say it is frequently abused!
In advertising copy, it repeatedly resounds!
And in breathless prose, it literally abounds!
The poorer the writer, the more frequently the case!
The exclamation point, they readily embrace!
To give a little emphasis! To make a little point!
This punctuation mark they will appoint!
But, to make emphasis perfectly clear,
Good writers generally appear
to make little use of exclamations
and other such typographic affectations.”
Editor’s Note: That’s what I tell my students. So they shift to emoticons!! :)!!!
Today’s Wish-I-Were-Here Photo: Dogpool
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A good friend I work with said one of his professors at USU said the only time an exclamation point should be used would be in such instances as, "Damn! My house is on fire!" Was that you? (Kay Anderson)
ReplyDeleteAnother good time to use the exclamation point is to suggest irony.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it is not unusual to have someone not understand that I am being ironic, to take me seriously instead, and then to totally misunderstand what I am saying.
In fact, I am sure that is why LOL was invented.
Too bad really.
I am almost beside myself knowing that March 4 is National Grammar Day. Imagine that! A tribute, an acknowledgement to GRAMMAR. God, I do love how the language works. And I love reading all those wonks who write books about how the language works. Bill Bryson, Ben Yagoda, Steven Pinker, Derek Bickerton, Lynne Truss are a few.
ReplyDeleteI wish I could just soak in a sea of grammar rules.
Steve Pinker, in one of his books, devotes a chapter to me called, "The Grammar Maven." Grammar mavens love the rules and love pouncing on people who break them. (I have come close to murder and mayhem over the misuse of lie/lay or the use of "snuck.") Steven Pinker calls us foolish and misguided since the language is ever evolving.
However, I notice in Steven Pinker's book that he follows all the rules meticulously.
So there.
I adore the man.
Ted, I'm loving your posts this week.
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