I have been reading a lot of written things lately, and I mean a lot. As a result of this, my current annoyance (which I have blogged about before, I’m sure) is excess punctuation. I mentioned before that I really like it when you see neat paragraphs of text with nice line-spacing that is generally written nicely. It looks nice, and it makes me want to read it. However, what I can’t stand is when you see paragraphs of text with line breaks in the wrong places, or people using 5 or more question marks when they only ask one question.
I know I’m quite sensitive and critical on the topic of writing, especially when my writing is far from perfect itself, but I believe I get most of the basics down pretty well (except for the occasional typo when I’m not thinking properly).
I’m just saying that it’s ugly, and completely unnecessary, to write something and then flood the page at the end of the sentence with loads of exclamation marks, question marks or dots. When I Google-searched exclamation marks, I found myself at this page, which is worth a quick read.
Just as a quick note. An ellipsis has three dots. Not more. Not less. Stop wasting time. You asked one question; use one question mark.
Oh, stop being so bloody pedantic! One question mark at the end of a sentence is just merely asking a question. More than one question mark is adding a bit of humour to the question, and asking the reader to not take that question too seriously.
Comprende????
No! Why do people have to butcher the English language by doing things that don’t make sense, look stupid and waste time? How is having an OCD with question marks funny?
- See what I did there? I asked one question and used one question mark. Oh, I did it again.
Mmm. Correct English.
You two make me laugh. Whilst I agree with Dan, sorry Laney, that OCD is not funny I also agree with Laney about the reason for using excessive punctuation marks.
In a face to face conversation a person has words, body language, facial expression and tone of voice to fully express what they are trying to convey. In a verbal only conversation, such as the telephone, we have words and tone at our disposal. In a text message or in blogland however, we have nothing but the written word. As mighty as it may be it is almost impossible to express emotion without continually writing the words of the emotion you were trying to convey. Disbelief, humour and astonishment are 3 such emotions which writers convey with the use of multiple exclamation marks and/or question marks. In serious writing of course, this is not necessary.
Damn, I really should learn when to shut up!!!!
Whilst I agree with you on the point that there aren’t enough ways of expressing your emotions in a text-based format, I still believe that there are alternative solutions besides using incorrect English. For example, formatting your text to be bold or italic. Or even bold AND italic if you are feeling adventurous.
Dan, maybe it’s laziness on my part, but typing all those html tags is a right royal pain in the a**, and more time consuming to me than merely duplicating the punctuation key I already had my finger on.
When I write letters and correspondence at work, I am very particular about my spellings and my punctuation, and maybe that is another reason I don’t want to be bothered with it here, sometimes I just need to let go and chill out.
Ah-hah. So this is where you inspire me to find a better text editor for my comments so that people can easily add text formatting, or even present the ability to use keyboard shortcuts.
Although, in honesty, typing b or i in <> (which isn’t really the correct way, but nevermind), is good practice ;)
I understand what you mean, but I find that I am plagued with such things everywhere, which is why it gets to me.
You are definitely your mother’s son, or maybe it would be nearer the truth to say Laney is her son’s mother. Never one to be beaten, and always able to see the point of view of other people even if you don’t agree with it.
A text editor to allow me to use bold and/or italic would be fantastic Dan.
Well of course. I love being defeated, but I only accept defeat when I know that I am completely wrong. Otherwise all people are correct in their individual ways, and I will consider every point of view presented.
A new comment system it is. Huzzah!