Today we were adding a new feature to one of the websites I oversee at my day job. Right before we pushed it live (of course), I noticed that we were missing a period, so I asked the web designer to add it.
"But it's a command," he insisted. "It doesn't need a period."
"It has a subject and a verb," I told him, "therefore it's a sentence, and it needs a period."
I turned to the writer I supervise for reinforcement. "What do you think?"
"We could use an exclamation point!" she suggested. (This is a girl who often uses exclamation points to convey her excitement, and I'm the one who generally edits them out so her excitement doesn't go overboard.)
Our coworker the web designer shuddered at the thought of an exclamation point prominently displayed on his masterpiece. That was the end of the great grammar debate. Period.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
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4 comments:
I tend to get a little crazy about punctuation. A command is a sentence. It requires a period. And in most cases exclamation points should be shot on sight.
My first foray into writing I was overusing exclamation marks because I wanted to make my point and felt the exclamation mark was doing just that. One of my co-workers was kind enough when he went on my blog to tell me he liked my writing, but that I should not overuse the exclamation mark. He said it was a common mistake, but the more you use it, the less effective it becomes.
When I look at other people's blogs I notice they too overuse the exclamation mark and need someone like I had to to tell them to STOP. I will send this link to my co-worker. He will love it!!!
Ugh. I see this all the time on the web. There'll be one statement with a period. And then the next one just hangs there without a period like so
I agree with all of you. If you're going to use an exclamation point, you'd better use it sparingly or else it loses its impact.
In fact, some say you should only use exclamation points in exclamatory sentences, which are phrased like questions. For instance: "what a fabulous dress!" (note that this doesn't have a verb, so technically, it's not a complete sentence, but we'll let it slide in dialogue or something informal like a blog post)
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