How Not to Write by William Safire

Author:William Safire
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2014-04-08T04:00:00+00:00

26

Unless you are quoting other people’s exclamations, kill all exclamation points!!!

The exclamation mark is in disrepute. Ever since F. Scott Fitzgerald advised, “Cut out all those exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke,” writers have accepted the notion that the punchy little mark is un-cool.

Wait! Don’t kill that useful little stage direction. Some readers need all the help they can get from the author, and the EP can reflect the emphasis intended by an interjection.

We must listen soberly to all the warnings against excessive exclaiming. Never use a punctuation mark to prop up a weak exclamation (“Gee!” he ejaculated) or to hype a mild emotion (He was real cute!). Never, never, never use exclamation points in series—!!!—which gets a triple-X rating in the punctilio of punctuation. Never use the EP at the end of a long sentence.

But consider prose without the EP: Whew, that’s a relief. White whale off the starboard bow. Stop, thief. Help, I’m drowning. Hold that line. Storm the Bastille. OK, language pundit—gotcha. Don’t these sentences, denuded of their EP, seem flat, listless and missing something?

You bet! (No. That’s an example of abusing the EP to add unwarranted enthusiasm.)

When you are interjecting a word or phrase to express horror (aargh!), disgust (yecch!), fear (gulp!) or triumph (ah-hah!), the absence of an exclamation mark will be remarked.

Another use of the point is in lieu of “just listen to this,” or “look who’s talking,” interpolated parenthetically, as in “My five-year-old announced she wanted a milk bath (!).” In this use, the EP is as short an editorial comment as you can find.

Do you want your interjection to explode? If your answer is “Hell, no!”, then—heavens to Betsy—don’t use the exclamation point.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.