{"id":5411,"date":"2026-01-23T19:03:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T19:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fundwriting.co.uk\/?p=5411"},"modified":"2026-01-25T21:31:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T21:31:10","slug":"are-you-too-fond-of-exclamation-marks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fundwriting.co.uk\/index.php\/are-you-too-fond-of-exclamation-marks\/","title":{"rendered":"Are you too fond of exclamation marks?!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Too many exclamation marks are unrelaxing. And unprofessional. (Image by FreePhotosART<\/a> from Pixabay.)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On our writing courses, we usually spend a bit of time going\nback to basics and considering what a sentence is. As we all know, a sentence\nstarts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, question mark or\nexclamation mark. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when should you use an exclamation mark? Grammatically\nspeaking, an exclamation mark should come after an exclamation (What a stupid\nidea it is to be prescriptive about exclamation marks!) or a strong command\n(Don\u2019t pepper your writing with unnecessary exclamation marks!). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Rules are made to be broken. The occasional ungrammatical exclamation mark can add humour.”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a little hard-line, though, to say that those are the only times when you should use an exclamation mark. Rules are made to be broken, and the occasional well-deployed exclamation mark at the end of a statement can add humour and emphasis to your writing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used one myself recently in an article about translation\nfor the Herald<\/em>: \u201cFor some years, The Mandarins<\/em> [by Simone de\nBeauvoir] was out of print,\u201d I wrote. \u201cOut of print! This is an abomination.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If overused, however, ungrammatical exclamation marks quickly become tiresome. We\u2019ve all received emails that start something like this: \u201cI hope you are well! It was great to meet you!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If overused, ungrammatical exclamation marks<\/strong>
quickly become tiresome.”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This is unrelaxing. And unprofessional. Ungrammatical exclamation marks should be used sparingly, like swear words or \u00a350 notes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this, they contrast with ungrammatical question marks.\nHere there is no room for manoeuvre or nuance. To write \u201cI hope you are well?\u201d\nor \u201cPerhaps we could meet on Thursday?\u201d is to write rubbish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like The Mandarins<\/em> being out of print, ungrammatical question marks are an abomination. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On our writing courses, we usually spend a bit of time going back to basics and considering what a sentence is. As we all know, a sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark. But when should you use an exclamation mark? Grammatically speaking, an exclamation … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Are you too fond of exclamation marks?!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[229,221,227,223,225,219],"class_list":["post-5411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-emphasis","tag-exclamation-mark","tag-humour","tag-question-mark","tag-rules","tag-sentence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundwriting.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundwriting.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundwriting.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundwriting.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundwriting.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5411"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/fundwriting.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5427,"href":"https:\/\/fundwriting.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5411\/revisions\/5427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundwriting.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundwriting.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundwriting.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}