Don’t you feel a particular joy when a beloved writer says something that resonates with your beliefs? I certainly laughed out loud when I read this quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald: “Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.”
Let me explain. Using an overused punctuation point, instead of some carefully chosen words, seems like a shoddy shortcut to me. There was a time when an exclamation mark was used—sparingly, judiciously to convey urgency or signify excitement.
A well-placed ‘!’ flooded even hard-nosed readers with feelings, or at least told them that they were supposed to feel something at that point. Ernest Hemingway, another of my writing heroes, is believed to have used only one exclamation mark in his Pulitzer-winning book, The Old Man and the Sea, and just 59 across his combined works. I haven’t counted, so I don’t know if that’s true. But I do believe that the master of concision and clarity would never sacrifice subtlety of expression for shrieky, one-dimensional communication. That’s more the style of former US President Donald Trump, who once used 15 exclamation marks in one tweet.
Experts say the exclamation point has its genesis in an old Latin proclamation of joy, or io, meaning hooray. Over time, the ‘i’ moved above the ‘o’; the ‘o’ became smaller, and eventually morphed into a dot. And, voila, the ‘!’ was born. Today, this joy is exploding across all written communication. Letters, messages, social media, even work emails are peppered with the overexcited punctuation point. The result? Diluted impact and reader ennui, for one. A once-powerful tool for highlighting emotion now stands diminished, leaving readers desensitised to any intended emphasis. If you flood every communication with multiple exclamation marks, it’s difficult to tell matchless news from the mundane.
Two, in a work situation, the promiscuous punctuator comes across as unprofessional and immature. Professionals are expected to be formal and precise when they communicate. Interspersing your words with giddy exclamation marks has just the opposite effect. Three, using too many exclamation marks in a message can make it challenging for your reader to discern your actual intention. In fact, by sprinkling your prose with !!!!!, you run the risk of coming across as insincere.
Researcher-writer Florence Hazrat disagrees. “What I love about ! is precisely the unabashed emotion that makes sober style guides uncomfortable,” says the author of An Admirable Point: A Brief History of the Exclamation Mark! In an article in the Washington Post earlier this year, Hazrat said the exclamation point is particularly useful in digital communication, where it bridges the gap between the faceless writer and reader. “On the web, people using ! seem friendlier than people who don’t,” she added.
Clearly, Hazrat sees friends where I see irritants. The only time I’ve seen beauty, and humour, in an exclamation point is in the legendary exchange between Victor Hugo and his publisher, when the writer wrote to enquire about the sales of his book Les Misérables. “?” asked the writer in his telegram. “!” was his publisher’s hearty response. If that exchange isn’t worth exclaiming over, I don’t know what is.
Shampa Dhar-Kamath
Delhi-based writer, editor and communication coach
shampadhar@gmail.com