Hang on! Today’s 180-word ride is an adventure punctuated – actually and liberally – with the equivalent of a quadruple-shot espresso!
What fun!
Writing now teeters under the oppressive exuberance of exclamation points! So many, everywhere!
Writing instructors have long coached scribblers-in-training to practice exclamation stinginess! They advise writing as if drawing on a life-time supply of 75! Or 50! Pick a number! But use them sparingly!
Newbs often hear the same advice about semi-colons, colons and dashes!
So many rules! I normally avoid proscriptions, choosing to focus on writing clearly and with voice! Write to be understood, I say! Forget the rules!
(Although: semi-colons are an abomination of muddled thinking made manifest in cluttered writing!)
I like exclamation points! I use them myself! Really!
But like ice cream with every meal, an exclamation point in every sentence ruins the treat! Cherries belong atop a sundae, not on my chili dog!
Plus, exclamation points now do work never intended for them, especially in emails and texts! In addition to exclaiming, they now must signal cheeriness! Light-heartedness! Don’t-take-me-seriously-ness!
Enough!
End the exclamation exuberance!
More on writing and punctuation
You, too, can be an apostrophe warrior
