The battle against exclamation points!!!
The December 9th edition of the Great Falls Tribune features an article on Mike Schwabenbauer, a high school teacher in Simms, Montana, who, according to the paper, is waging a war against unnecessary exclamation points in writing, both in his classes, and within the local business community. This is an issue near and dear to my heart, so the article struck home. My former position as a greeting card editor in the humor area brought this issue to the surface on a regular basis. Our copy database was rife with these unnecessary marks!!! And I quickly learned, that unless the end of the world was upon us, one exclam was more than enough, if it was even necessary at all. I thank my former director, Shelley, for disabusing me of the notion that “!!” or “!!!” or “!?!” was ever something that should be printed on a page (or a card), and know that my writing is the better for her swift and thorough lesson in proper punctuation.
