Thursday, February 24, 2011

@amiromar, interjections, and schoolhouse rock


Ok, Amir.

I dig the timely tweets, I dig the energy, and I'm generally sympathetic to your approach. But, really:

there is no law requiring one to put an exclamation point (!) in every. single. tweet.

Srsly. They will not fine you, cart you off, or revoke your social media membership card if you just stick a period at the end. Your content is good, you're articulate and energetic. No need for the hyperventilating punctuation. No one will think you are getting old, suffering from Low T or anything like that.

Sometimes we use non-exclamation punctuation "when the feeling's not as strong":



(yes, I know Mr. Omar rarely posts actual interjections but that was the closest pop culture reference I could find on youtube).



Postscript: once I got an email from a bizness d00d who contracted me to do web editing or similar. He asked me to add an "explanation mark" to one of the sentences.

I wracked my brain trying to parse what this meant. Was this some kind of esoteric punctuation my liberal arts education had skipped? Did I make a mistake going to a state school? Was it a business-specific symbol like the Copyright © or something? I was in agony. Finally he wrote "one of these -> !!!".

Ahh. The wiley explanation mark. I see now. I'll have that done in a few minutes...

3 comments:

Destiny said...

He's also a "big fan" of "air quotes." Oh, I mean "!!!"

Anonymous said...

I tweeted about this a few weeks ago myself. Overuse of the exclamation point is not only annoying, but akin to crying wolf. "Had a bagel with butter instead of cream cheese. It was pretty average!"

Anonymous said...

And there is not an awesome adjective he does not love.