WOW!

At first it was just a harmless flirtation. I would never go through with it. Still, I wondered what it would be like . . .

I kept thinking about it until that fateful day. Yes, I was taught it was wrong, but I couldn’t help myself. And, then, it just happened: I ended a sentence with two exclamation marks!! 

What was I doing? Did I suddenly forget F. Scott Fitzgerald’s admonishment, “An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke”? Was I simply going to ignore Elmore Smith’s declaration: “You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose”? And why was I defying what even Rich Kallan had earlier written, “Exclamation points should be used sparingly in formal writing, their overuse suggesting an unseasoned writer who lacks the tools to express passion and intensity in more sophisticated ways”? True, my exclamation point outburst didn’t occur in formal writing, but still, two in a row?

It isn’t just novelists who eschew the exclamation point. It is shunned by fields as disparate as journalism, academia, and business. The view held is that one’s content ought to speak for itself without the need for stage directions. Let the reader, not the writer, decide what warrants exclamation.

That all makes sense unless you are using exclamation points with a different purpose in mind. Emailing, texting, tweeting, and other various forms of social media invite an economy of style, allowing the exclamation point to emerge as a form of shorthand, a way to quickly signal, for example, appreciation (Thanks!), praise (Great!), approval (Perfect!), and inclusion (Visit us!). Because the intended audience is more attuned to abbreviated texts, the writer does not need to say much more.

Exclamation points can also be used to convey friendliness and support. Be sure to come to the reception! We’re all looking forward to see you! And while Carol Waseleski’s study of gender and the use of exclamation points confirms that women use exclamation points more than men, the points do not, according to Waseleski, “function solely—or even very often—as markers of excitability.” Rather, they serve as “markers of friendly interaction . . . and to emphasize intended statements of fact.”

Still, the question remains, why two exclamation points? Are two really needed? The simple answer: of course not. But sometimes you may want to distinguish between different levels of exclamation. A thank you note, for example, might begin: “Thanks! Yours was the perfect gift!!” As to be expected, though, the power of double exclamation points is enhanced when used judiciously.

Some will forever refrain from using exclamation points because it is not common to their profession or because they generally tend to write more formally. But for a legion of others, the exclamation point is a viable tool, and the use of two, or for that matter three or four in a row, is communicative. What cannot be denied is that the exclamation point gives informal writing a greater sense of orality—the feel of sounding more like the way we think and talk. And that’s not a bad thing.