I checked in at work today (my boss returns this coming Friday) to pick up the mail and stopped by the bathroom on the way out. As usual, there’s a sign posted that says “Please only flush toilet paper! Thanks!” but this time, someone had added a comment. Circling the exclamation marks, she had scrawled a rant against the improper use of exclamation points. I don’t remember the exact wording, but it basically said that exclamation marks ought to be used to convey excitement or shouting and that it was incorrect in particular to use them after the phrase “please only flush toilet paper.” The rant ended in a snippy comment requesting that we all give thought to how we use punctuation.
I stared at the note for a moment, picturing the sad, frustrated little person that stood in a bathroom stall for quite awhile writing this note about punctuation on a sign that most people probably don’t even read anyway. What level of unhappiness in your life must you be experiencing to get upset enough about someone else’s grammar to spend at least 10 minutes ridiculing it?
Not to mention that she’s not exactly correct to begin with. Merriam-Webster online defines an exclamation point as “a mark ! used especially after an interjection or exclamation to indicate forceful utterance or strong feeling.” And I’d bet she’d have strong feelings about the issue if she had been the one unclogging the toilet when it backed up after people flushed who-knows-what.
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Your not mormon enough to get this, but there was an article, in the Sugar Beet I think (mormon version of the Onion), that talked about the existential angst of pitting a desire to use exclamation points sparingly (as suggested by gramatists) and a talk by some (female) church leader about how much she loved exclamation points. Very funny.
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