!!!

FORMAL REFERENCE:
Morris, Jan. "!!!." Wall Street Journal - Eastern Edition, June 28, 2006., A14, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed March 31, 2011).

RELEVANT SECTIONS: All

SUMMARY:

This appears to be an opinion piece. In it, the author describes the exclamation mark and its current use, referring to it as “the most sensitive of these grammatical symbols, and the most crudely threatened by ignorant fashion.” The author notes, in support of many others, that “every year fewer practitioners dare to employ it” and that “editors routinely remove exclamation mark, as they are signs of illiteracy.”

Of value is the statement that “The exclamation mark remains the same whatever the thought it is illustrating, but its meaning miraculously shifts. It is like a written tone of voice. It can be, of course, exclamatory, but it can also magically signify humor, horror, sarcasm and a host of other emotions.” Also, “In short, you can do almost anything with the exclamation mark.”

ASSESSMENT:
The Wall Street Journal is widely respected, but it is not scholarly. The author is not a linguist or academic—she is a travel book author. However, as a Wall Street Journal contributor and author, she does have the authority to describe current usage.

REFLECTION:

I’m not sure I can use this as much more than support for more scholarly references. It will be good in support of the idea that the mark is growing more and more frowned on in formal linguistic settings such as editing, however.

KEYWORDS AND LABELS:

exclamation mark, dismissal, herd mentality, non-academic