The book I’m currently reading feels the need to end every few pages with something “witty” and an exclamation mark after it. Damn you, exclamation marks, with your easy creation of enthusiasm for things that aren’t supposed to be enthusiastic!
I dislike exclamation marks too! It’s the written equivalent of raising your eyebrows and smiling at the end of every sentence! Like it’s saying hey wow omigod! And multiple exclamation marks are like raising your eyebrows, smiling and jumping up and down like a monkey!!!
Hello!!! I’m unable to express my mood using simple words and must display my lack of creativity through punctuation!!!
Exclamation marks should only be used after a speaking sentence, or when things really are a startling point. And I’ve been recently put in my place about having more than one. It’s just wrong.
Hey, hey, hey, now, don’t start saying bad things about jumping up and down like a monkey. Cause that’s fun.
As F. Scott Fitzgerald said, using exclamation points is like laughing at your own jokes.
I have stopped reading books because the author used too many exclamation points (Tom Wolfe).
Oh, I don’t know…that was one of the things which always endeared me to MAD magazine movie parodies. EVERY SINGLE LINE ended in an exclamation mark. Even if the character was just saying her/his name! Just like that!
That wasn’t just a Mad magazine thing – it used to be that all comic book sentences ended in exclamation marks (and mad started out as a comic book).
My favorite comment on this was a review in the Wall Street JHournal of one of Robert Ludlum’s. I forget the reviewer’s name (he went on to do a column in Spy), but it was hilarious. He started doing counts of the exclamation marks on pages. Something like" But the 36 exclamation marks on page 43 are only a buildup for the 58 exclamation marks on page 121. They look like this: !!!"
Now, now, ** h. ** that’s no reason to give up books altogether!
I know, I know. Go to the chalkboard, Kn*ckers, and write out “Deliberate misinterpretation is not funny” 100 times. I’ve learned my lesson.
Kn(!!!)ckers