Exclamation!
The exclamation point and I have had a tumultuous relationship. When I was young, it seemed that this particular punctuation mark spoke of immaturity and "i's" dotted with little hearts. So I never used them.
Never.
And when I read something that contained this avoided object, it would mess up the sound of the sentence because the whole point of the exclamation point is to emphasize the last word beyond all normal speech pattern.
And then I started making my living by writing letters.
And I built my letters on the bones of other letters that had exclamation point after exclamation point. I struggled so hard to leave those exclamation points without touching them. Time after time, I would try to reword the sentence so that I could get rid of the little mark above the period and just leave the much more demure looking period.
But personal growth is a goal of mine, and I thought, after a time, that perhaps my revulsion of the exclamation point was overstated. And so I began to use them.
A form of penance, I suppose.
And then in came a third of a dozen co-workers for me to train in the art and science of writing letters and one of them, oh horrors of horrors! She tries to use more than just one! And there was that sentence with three of them, just hanging out like it was a sunny day at the beach. And my red pen twitched over them, as I talked myself through the ins and outs of exclamation point usage.
What a problem!!!
Never.
And when I read something that contained this avoided object, it would mess up the sound of the sentence because the whole point of the exclamation point is to emphasize the last word beyond all normal speech pattern.
And then I started making my living by writing letters.
And I built my letters on the bones of other letters that had exclamation point after exclamation point. I struggled so hard to leave those exclamation points without touching them. Time after time, I would try to reword the sentence so that I could get rid of the little mark above the period and just leave the much more demure looking period.
But personal growth is a goal of mine, and I thought, after a time, that perhaps my revulsion of the exclamation point was overstated. And so I began to use them.
A form of penance, I suppose.
And then in came a third of a dozen co-workers for me to train in the art and science of writing letters and one of them, oh horrors of horrors! She tries to use more than just one! And there was that sentence with three of them, just hanging out like it was a sunny day at the beach. And my red pen twitched over them, as I talked myself through the ins and outs of exclamation point usage.
What a problem!!!
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