Too many exclamation points? Never!!!!!
When f uddy- duddies in Britain’s department of education issued a decree recently aimed at curtailing the use of exclamation marks among primary school children, you’d think grammarians and linguists would be overjoyed.
After all, there is a veritable orgy of these screamers punctuating our daily e- mails, text messages and Twitter streams, not to mention political campaign slogans ( “Make America Great Again!”).
But on both sides of the Atlantic, the overwhelming response to the government’s intervention seems to be, “Say what?!”
British columnists have excoriated bureaucrats for their “joyless authoritarianism.” Even Shakespeare sprinkled his verses liberally with exclamation points (“O brawling love! O loving hate!”), said the Daily Mail in defending the “little emblems of ejaculation.”
Canadian language experts also wondered if the British government was engaged in unnecessary meddling.
“Who are the pedants that come up with this stuff, and don’t they have anything better to do — and, more importantly, better to teach?” asked Sean Zwagerman, an English professor at Simon Fraser University.
According to the edict, an exclamatory sentence must begin with What or How, be a complete sentence, and contain a verb.
“What big teeth you have, Grandma!” is suitable under this criteria. As is, “How beautiful Cinderella looks in that dress!”
Exclamation marks can be used in other sentence forms, such as commands (“Be my friend!”), the new rules state, but students would not receive any credit for these other uses.
An education department spokesman told reporters: “A high- quality education in English — and the ability to communicate effectively — is an important part of the government’s commitment to extend opportunity to all.”
Hogwash, said Britain’s l argest t eachers’ union, denouncing the “political micro-management of teaching and learning.”
Rather than teach students that writing well means following a set of rules, a better approach would be to teach them writing well means ascertaining one’s purpose, situation and audience, Zwagerman argues.
“If I’m texting a friend to try to persuade her to come to a party, I may use a string of exclamation points to show my enthusiasm!!!!” he said. “If I’m writing an academic essay or an argument, I’m expected to support my opinion with reasons and examples, not just exclamation points: “The candidate’s rhetoric is so effective because…” rather than “Trump is a sociopath!!!”
One might assume Sue Horner, a corporate communications consultant in Oakville, Ont., would jump to the defence of the new rules. After all, she has a couple of blog posts on her website, getitwrite. ca, poking fun at a real estate newsletter and a non- profit’s annual report that were stuffed with exclamation marks.
But rather than bog down students with rules, educators would be better off teaching how to make sentences “appropriately emphatic without resorting to this sometimes artificial device,” Horner says.
“S t udents s hould be aware of the exclamation mark, but view it somewhat like a fire alarm — before you break the glass to use it, think seriously about whether you need to.”
There is no question we’re “swimming in a sea of bad English,” says Margaret Chandler, a business writing consultant at Green Fuse Inc., in Calgary, but this approach is “not the life-jacket we need.”
English isn’t static and usage rules are bound to be simplified over time, Chandler said. While there is a tendency to overuse exclamation marks, she admits she’s relaxed a bit over the issue.
“The truth is that email is an impersonal form of communication, but it’s often the only connection we have with people. So we use the exclamation mark to convey some warmth and personality. But I still advise people to … be judicious with its use.”
Not everyone is critical of the new rules. In fact, a column in the Guardian newspaper said they didn’t go far enough. Don’t just restrict the use of exclamation marks, it said; students should be “bribed or forcibly encouraged to use more colons and semicolons, the proper use of which both reflects and encourages careful thinking.”
Careful what you wish for, says Paul Budra, chair of Simon Fraser’s English department. All this emphasis on blocking the use of exclamation marks may serve to make them “seem cool, subversive, and hence, desirable to rebellious youth,” he quipped.
Such rules may also be a tough sell when the language of certain political figures can only be rendered using exclamation marks, he said. Donald Trump’s campaign website is littered with them (“I won’t let them take away our guns!!”).
Budra says he will let his students decide for themselves how urgent and exciting are the points they make in their essays. As someone who once posted, “Look at this cheese tray!!” on Facebook, he says he is in no position to judge.