!!!

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

Comma-sense punctuation

FORMAL REFERENCE:
Thomas, Lewis. "Comma-sense punctuation." Writer 114, no. 2 (February 2001): 10. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed March 26, 2011).

RELEVANT SECTIONS: All

SUMMARY:

This article, from a writer’s magazine, puts down an onslaught against exclamation marks. Quote:

Exclamation points are the most irritating of all. Look! they say, look at what I just said! How amazing is my thought! It is like being forced to watch someone else's small child jumping up and down crazily in the center of the living room shouting to attract attention. If a sentence really has something of importance to say, something quite remarkable, it doesn't need a mark to point it out. And if it is really, after all, a banal sentence needing more zing, the exclamation point simply emphasizes its banality!

Further: “A single exclamation point in a poem, no matter what else the poem has to say, is enough to destroy the whole work.”

There is no data or research to back this up, but this subject, after all, is largely qualitative. This article was published in a writer’s magazine, and the other descriptions of punctuation in the article were accurate and helpful—this article was intended to be helpful to other writers. This fact makes the mention all the more interesting: writers are told by other writers to avoid punctuation marks, often for quite heartfelt reasons.

ASSESSMENT:
This article is a reprint of a section of Medusa and the Snail from 1979, by the same author. I am choosing not to cite that reference, because the context of this being published in a writer’s magazine is more important than a book.

Lewis Thomas is definitely an accomplished writer and author. He won a National Book Award in 1974 and his articles have appeared in pretty much every respected larger medium (NYT, SciAm, The Atlantic, Harpers). He was a professor of pediatric research at the U of M and was dean of Yale Medical School. So, his view would represent an academic perspective.

REFLECTION:

I will use this as the strongest example of the case being made against the use of exclamation marks, noting that if this is the case, it will need actual research to back it up—and if this sentiment is wrong, there’s a huge linguistic opportunity in the use of exclamation marks.

KEYWORDS AND LABELS:

exclamation mark, dismissal

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

FORMAL REFERENCE:
Truss, Lynne. 2003. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. New York: Penguin.

RELEVANT SECTIONS: “Cutting a Dash” chapter: pp 132-139

SUMMARY:

Eats, Shoots & Leaves is a mass-market book about punctuation in the English language. While conversationally written, the book is actually quite learned and content-filled.

The section on exclamation marks is a great overview, noting the origin, early use, and modern function and effect as well as including mentions of how, strangely, some sticklers frown upon the use of exclamation marks in many, if not all, circumstances.

Apparently, the mark was introduced by humanist printers in the 15^th century as “the note of admiration.” As in, “How pretty you are!” or, “The sun is so bright!” Today, it is used with more variety, though sometimes to chagrin: it is “unignorable and hopelessly heavy-handed”; it is hard to get right.

The author relates a good point when she says, “I can’t help thinking, in its defence, that our system of punctuation is limited enough already without dismissing half of it as rubbish.”

Truss notes eight uses of the mark: interjections, to salute or invoke, to exclaim or admire, for added drama, to emphasize, or to “deflect potential misunderstanding of irony” as in, “I don’t mean it!”

Finally, the author notes the exclamation mark’s use in humor and jokes as “the equivalent of canned laughter.” Interesting.

ASSESSMENT:
This is not a scholarly source, but the author most certainly is: she graduated with a first-class honors degree in English Language and Literature from University College London and has been an editor since 1978. She also hosts a punctuation show on BBC Radio 4; she most certainly knows what she is talking about.

Much of the material could be considered opinion, but it does seem reasonable and expected based on common understandings of the role of exclamation marks in my experience.

REFLECTION:

This book contains eminently quotable material for the introduction to the research proposal. Some of the points, such as how grammarians warn off its use, will make a good argument for further investigation.

KEYWORDS AND LABELS:

introduction, history, overview, dismissal, argument