Exclamation point, a la Shmoop.
We all have that one friend.
The one who’s an endlessly happy person…
always excited about life and school and her boyfriend and her twelve cats.
Let’s call her Cindy.
Talking to Cindy is a pain in the rear, because every sentence she speaks comes out like this…
“OMG!
Did you see what happened in the library today!
Carey Clueless dropped her Coke on the carpet and it went everywhere!”
Too many exclamation points, Cindy.
Try and contain your enthusiasm.
Exclamation points serve a special purpose in writing.
They add oomph to a sentence…
…or indicate the presence of strong emotions, like surprise, pain, fear, or urgency.
Exclamation points are like salt.
They should be used sparingly.
Clearly, our friend Cindy never learned this lesson.
For example, when Cindy talks about what she had for lunch, it isn’t necessary for her
to say, “I’m having a bologna sandwich…exclamation point.”
Bologna sandwiches aren’t exciting.
However, if Cindy were to find a roach on her bologna sandwich, we’d expect an exclamation
point to make an appearance.
When Cindy talks about the sweater she crocheted for her cat Pumpkinhead, she doesn’t need
to say, “His little sweater is so precious…exclamation point.”
It’s a cat sweater, not the solution to the Riemann <> hypothesis.
However, if Justin Bieber “likes” a picture of Cindy’s sweater-wearing feline on Facebook,
then it would be perfectly appropriate for Cindy to bust out the exclamation point.
While sentences we use in everyday speech might occasionally merit an exclamation point…
…there’s a special category of phrases called exclamatory sentences – these guys
always end with an exclamation mark.
When Cindy steps on a Lego and screams “Ouch!”…
…that “Ouch” ends in an exclamation point.
When Cindy steps in a pile of cat vomit in the middle of the night on the way to the
bathroom and screams “Gross!”…
…that “Gross” ends in an exclamation point.
When Cindy devises yet another quaint sweater design for one of her many cats and screams
“Eureka!”…
…that “Eureka” ends in an exclamation point.
When it comes to quotation marks, it can be a tad difficult to figure out whether an exclamation
point goes before a quotation mark…
…or after.
So, here’s the rule.
If a whole sentence is an exclamation, the exclamation point goes after the quotation
mark.
For example, if we have the sentence: Cindy was so surprised when Carey Clueless said,
“I like peanut butter and tuna fish sandwiches”!...
…the sentence would look like this: Cindy was so surprised when Carey Clueless said…comma…quotation
mark…I like peanut butter and tuna fish sandwiches…quotation mark…exclamation
point.
However, if only the words within the quotation marks are an exclamation…
…and they always are in Cindy’s case…
…then the exclamation point would go inside the quotation mark.
For example, if we have the sentence: Cindy told Carey Clueless, “My grandmother died
yesterday and I’m so sad!”…
…the sentence would look like this: Cindy told Carey Clueless…comma…quotation mark…My
grandmother died yesterday and I’m so sad…exclamation point…quotation mark.
And that’s pretty much it for exclamation points.
The most important thing to remember is that the fewer exclamation points there are in
a piece of writing…
…the better.
Good luck getting Cindy on board with that one…