Arrggghhhh!!!! – I can’t stop using exclamation marks!!!!!!
Dear Friends:
A library user asks us: “Can any reader assist me?...
Please help – am desperate!...I just can’t stop using EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!”
Naturally, the Blogbrary is always eager to help cure your addiction!
Try any of these!! – they’re great!!!
Another ‘Good-Un’ (as we often refer to them in the hallowed arena of the Bexley Senior Librarian’s Dining & Literary Society) would be Anton Chekhov’s celebrated novella The Exclamation Mark, in which the hero of the tale, an elderly civil servant, realises that after 40 years diligent bureaucratic labour, he has never used a single exclamation mark…! The results of this revelation are dramatic in the extreme, if you like classic Russian literature!!!!!!!!!
Still on the classics, I am mindful of the anecdote concerning Victor Hugo, the celebrated but frugal French novelist, who was once desperate to find out how his latest novel was selling, so he sent a telegram to his publisher asking “?”.
His publisher, equally, frugal, dryly replied “!”
Very droll.
Today, however, such brevity or wit is not associated with the exclamation mark, and is frowned upon by upmarket newspapers, where it is often referred to as a `screamer`, a `gasper`, or a `startler`. Modesty prevents me from describing what red-top tabloid journalists call it, but – suffice to say – it’s not very pleasant, and concerns canine anatomy. (!)
Anyway, should our original correspondent wish to pursue their grammatical studies further, then they could try this!
Or this!!!
Or even this!!!!
I do hope that’ll be of some assistance.
So, dear readers, that’s me done…
But rather than sign off in my usual ttfn fashion, I shall – on this occasion - say merely BYEEE!!!!!!!!!!!
6 comments:
An excellent selection of titles for people like me, who went to school when grammar was out of fashion - our senior school English teacher had to use our French lessons as examples of what she was talking about if she mentioned grammatical terms! Though I must admit I'm tempted to hot foot it for the book by Chekhov first!
Thanks, Terri ~ yes, that reminds me of English grammar lessons at school…not very successful, I fear, and I still think that gerunds are small, furry mammals..
Glad to hear that you’ll be `hot-footing` it for a copy of the Chekhov novella, that’s not a phrase you hear every day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Too many exclamation marks always makes a website look like a teenagers Facebook page. In a book it looks like the author just couldn't be bothered to write anything exciting so tried to inject excitement through punctuation. So anything you can do to stem the tide is most welcome. Here's some good advice from Elmore Leonard on exclamation marksYou are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
Thanks, Peter ~ that’s great! (Ooops!!)
And a link to Elmore Leonard, too – that’s good: I like his books, he’s very concise, and never wastes a word!!!
Definitely find a copy of The Exclamation Mark by Chekhov - it's very short but quirky and quite amusing!
Excellent, thanks Terri.
(I think that a copy of ‘The Exclamation Mark’ is around at our Central Library…)
And, re your phrase “short, quirky, and quite amusing”….well, what more could you possibly want from a book? (Am tempted to add a ! here, but let’s not, eh?)...
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