Pet Peeve #29 - ?!?!?!?!
Stop with the over punctuation already!
I don’t know if it is because of the rise of the internet culture or what else, but the overuse of the question mark and exclamation mark is beyond annoying.
So stop it already.
If you use one question mark, I get it - it’s a question. I also understand with just one exclamation point that the statement is being made at a louder than normal volume. Using more than one of either those implies you think I’m not intelligent enough to understand what those punctuation marks mean without a couple more behind the first one.
The last thing I want to critique or edit is something by some unpublished author who hasn’t taken the time to open any other book on the planet and note that other authors don’t do that.
Yes, I said ‘unpublished’. You didn’t think you were going to get published abusing your punctuation marks like that, did you?
July 10th, 2007 at 6:31 am
Exclamation marks in general make me queasy.
July 10th, 2007 at 7:06 am
This is where the Net is evil. Lots of punctuation online help convey things ’cause there’s no nonverbal cues or even narration, like in fiction.
Bad habits can form, that spill into writing, unless a writer can develop an Internet voice and a fiction voice.
July 10th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
I was reading a story I wrote back in maybe 1st grade(?) the other day. I swear that it had an exclaimation point at the end of every sentence.
July 11th, 2007 at 1:12 am
Bernita - Me as well. Ugh.
Susan - This is definitely where the internet is evil, but it’s good to establish your “real” writing from your internet writing. Plus, any such abuse of punctuation marks like this has “young” written all over it, in my eyes.
Elisa - You were one of those, huh? I was the anti-exclamation mark and question mark kid.