In reading the last few entries here, I have noticed a disturbing trend. It seems that I am addicted to exclamation points! They're everywhere! In titles! At the end of sentences! INSIDE sentences! I! can't! stop!
One could make an unflattering comparison between me and that horrid Karyn girl, except for how I have never asked the world to pay for my freaking Prada shoe debt, of course. But the exclamation points? I'm right there with her.
This is especially disheartening because overuse of the little buggers drives me up a wall in the writing of others, and is one of my favorite things to make fun of people for. And here I am, hoist by my own style petard. Blah (see, I had to physically resist putting an exclamation point after that blah. What the hell?)
I started thinking about this problem when my mom gave me printouts of the e-mails I'd sent her while I was on a semester abroad program in Germany. How exciting, I thought, to have this insight into my adventures, a perspective on them that I might have forgotten I ever had.
Indeed. Everything was so exciting! And I did this! And that sucked! And I went there! And my room was small! And the food was weird!!! Any novelty that this window to the past might have held was eclipsed by the chattering presence of that demonic little punctuation mark cluttering up every other damn sentence. Golly gee, how glad I was to have moved on from that chatty and immature mode of communication. Thank goodness that I could express myself without such clumsy measures now!
?uh-huh. Well, my newfound sensitivity to the beastly bang led me to see things with a new eye, and, like a character from Lovecraft, or Rowdy Roddy Piper, my mind gibbered in fear at the realization that they?were?everywhere. All over the damn place, making it sound, like, totally junior high! Shoutouts to my girlz! I loooove you guys! Mrs. Biedermeyer sucks!
Cowed and ashamed, I must accept that I have been in denial all these years. I am still in their seductive grasp. It is my hope that this acceptance will be a first step in achieving a healthy relationship with exclamation points. Any treatment plans you might be able to suggest will be most welcome. I think we all know what the most important priority is here: to restore my feelings of lingual superiority. I implore you to help me get back up on my high horse. That would totally rock! You guys are the best!
P.S. Anyone who has any advice to offer on my dependency on wintergreen mints, internet discussion sites populated by morons with poor impulse control, and Elvis' Christmas Album is welcome to chime in. -Hilatron
Posted by hilatron at November 20, 2002 07:23 PMI have an addiction to commas, (see!) and emphasis thingies -- that I don't know the proper name for.
I like to use square brackets instead of close-parenthesis marks in my emoticons, as well. ;-]
(You're critical of all punctuation mistakes, BTW.)
Posted by: Josh at November 23, 2002 01:58 PMDuh!
Of course I'm critical of all punctuation mistakes, Mister Snarky-pants. Exclamation points is just one of my favorites, because it makes it so easy to paint someone as an overenthusiastic moron. Fun fun!!!!!!!!!
(-- = m-dash. Btw. :-P)
Posted by: Hilatron at November 23, 2002 02:12 PMhilatron, you're funny!!! =)
Posted by: vg at November 27, 2002 10:09 AM