Overused exclamation mark often misses the point
It is the unabashed expression of emotion. The voice of anybody who is convinced no one is listening.
It's the tourist sunburn. The wife who's finally had it being turned off by the remote control. The scream of both joy and desperation.
"Notice me!" it says. And you do, whether you like it or not, because the exclamation point is in your face, everywhere.
It's in the e-mail reminding you to "file that TPS report!"
On the TV infomercial, fervently yet ambiguously tempting you with "risk free!" products and services.
On the sticky note branded onto the refrigerator door, warning you to consider your life before even thinking about drinking the last of the milk!
Thanks to the convenience of the keyboard, there's no longer just one exclamation, but five!!!!! Or more!!!!!!
With the rise of e-mail communication and the relative anonymity of the corporate workplace's break-room microwave, the exclamation point has become the symbol for how we express tone and body language when neither can be heard or seen.
This mark of punctuation screams silently.
Somewhere within the soundless discourse, particularly on the receiving end, is the idea that no life can be so dramatic that it needs more than one exclamation point.
Or if it does, watch out! This person could be a candidate for workplace violence!!!
"It's shaped like a bludgeoning device," says Doug Fisher, a University of South Carolina communications professor. "I think sometimes that's what people are trying to do, bludgeon you into paying attention, but too many of them knock you senseless, and you don't pay attention at all."
Take e-mail spam. Or leave it, as does Gary Duckett, a 47-year-old Greenville Tech student who is currently on sabbatical from the business world.
"There is no spam that doesn't have an exclamation point," says Duckett, of Spartanburg. "It's the equivalent of a shouting TV commercial, like one of those used-car salesmen who has a close-out sale every week."
Nowhere, he says, is the use of the exclamation point more abused and counterproductive than in a professional setting.
Hospital rooms, Duckett says, have signs that simply state, "Cell phone use prohibited." It's a warning that, if not heeded, could get someone hurt.
But somewhere in the hospital, he says he knows there's a sticky note scrawled by a desperate workplace employee, shrieking, "Do NOT take these pens!!!"
On the gas station window, a sign with two exclamation points boasts of lottery payouts, and the gas card banners scream "apply inside!"
The sign informing the would-be robber, however, speaks softly. For some reason — and there's probably a good one — the statement, "Employees do not have access to the safe," warrants merely a period.
Roz Canty, 27, of Anderson, says any correspondence she receives, whether physical or virtual, is put to the exclamation test.
"If I see a note with a lot of exclamation points, I don't read it," she says. "If you use too many, it's like crying wolf."
And therein lies the problem, communication experts say. Too often, the exclamation point is used when it will have the least effect.
"If you have to use punctuation or some other gimmick to convey that feeling, then it suggests that there's something wrong with what you've written," says Melinda Menzer, a Furman University English professor.
It's not the exclamation point that should be the object of scorn, Menzer says, only its abusers.
Some dialogue would be misleading without an exclamation point to capture a character's intonation, and in rare cases, she says, it can be used in professional communication.
But, in no note, letter or memo should it be used more than once, she says, because then it is reduced to "using punctuation to make up for the fact that you can't communicate otherwise."
Strunk and White argue in "The Elements of Style," widely considered the writer's bible, that an exclamation point should be used only to express "true exclamations or commands."
And it was F. Scott Fitzgerald who once said, "Exclamation points are like laughing at your own joke."
Well, a lot of people are laughing these days.
Fisher says let them snort and guffaw at themselves.
While critical of the punctuation mark's abuse, he is sympathetic with those who are simply emotional and want to share it. In fact, he says there should be "a society for the preservation of the exclamation point."
But it's the occasion, the medium and the attitude that must be right for an exclamation point to be endearing, he says.
"People like it because it expresses an internal feeling, you know? It's like, 'Wow, look at this!' In the world where we're surrounded and assaulted and battered by communication every day, there's a certain desire to fight for the attention."
