What does (!) mean? Anything?

[Agent_Foxtrot]

@Happy_Lendervedder

For example: “The conversation turned to knitting, oral sex(!) and the Golden Girls once grandma arrived.”

I have been known to utter a sentence very close to this in my life. I wish I was joking. :smack:

[uuaschbaer]

In hard-of-hearing subtitles it means sarcasm.

[Ellen_Cherry]

@Idle_Thoughts

I don’t use it very often, though. The fact that she’s using it in most of her emails seems odd and overused.

This is the vibe I get. Like she’s overly astonished.

[typoink]

It’s easy to overuse, but I think it’s a pretty useful mark to indicate midsentence surprise or direct attention to a strange outlier in a list.

Curiously, it’s a type of punctuation that doesn’t really have an impact on how something is read aloud (at least as I’d approach it). It’s more like an annotation.

[Patty_O_Furniture]

@antonio107

I’ve also seen !? and ?!. I’m unclear what the convention between the two is…

An interrobang, which we discussed here:

!? or ?!

[thelurkinghorror]

@Bosstone

I’m guessing here, but I think the use started becoming widespread when Metal Gear Solid became popular.

Every time I see that typed, I always get the MGS “siren” sound in my head soon after.

[antonio107]

@Patty_O_Furniture

An interrobang, which we discussed here:

!? or ?! - In My Humble Opinion - Straight Dope Message Board

So, !? is “interesting,” and ?! is “dubious…” But, neither is explicitly bad? :dubious:

[shijinn]

(?) is used in the same way right? in this case to wonder if it was really introduced there:

I absolutely abhored the ‘sudden and very violent death’ scenes introduced(?) in the Final Destination movies.

[MsRobyn]

@shijinn

(?) is used in the same way right? in this case to wonder if it was really introduced there:

I absolutely abhored the ‘sudden and very violent death’ scenes introduced(?) in the Final Destination movies.

I’ve actually seen (!) and (?) used in print, so they’re not original to the Internet. The former indicates that the word or phrase used is unexpected or a surprise. According to The McMillan Writer, (?) indicates an unconfirmed fact.

For example, I might say “The cake I had at Joe’s Diner was excellent. When I asked for the recipe, I was told they use flour, eggs, milk, Dr Pepper (!), and chocolate chips.” The (!) shows that I was surprised that the recipe included Dr Pepper because that’s not a common ingredient in cake, so I wouldn’t have expected its inclusion in the recipe.

You were sort of right in your example of (?), but I would have said this: “I absolutely abhorred the ‘sudden and very violent death’ scenes introduced in the Final Destination (?) movies.” This shows that you’re not sure if they were introduced in the Final Destination movies, or in some other movie. That these scenes were introduced somewhere isn’t really in contention. I might have said “I absolutely abhorred the ‘sudden and very violent death’ scenes, which I believe were introduced in the Final Destination movies,” just for the sake of clarity.