Hello!!

Today is the last day of our Book Giveaway contest. If you still want to enter the chance to win a free copy of Culips’ new book, English Q & A (in English and Japanese), look at the blog post below and make a comment.

As I was looking back at the previous post and others I noticed that I almost always use the exclamation mark (or exclamation point) in the title of my blog post. The reason I always do this is because I want to express my excitement and interest in what I am posting.

It also made me think about this interesting article I recently read. This article was all about the exclamation mark and how it had become popular again. In the very recent past, it was not common at all to use this punctuation. It was used only in novels and stories or by over-excited teenagers in notes to friends. But as email became more and more popular so did using exclamation marks.

(Here is where I found the article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/29/exclamation-mark-punctuation)

The article is not an easy read for those of you who are just learning English. Here is a short list of some of the more interesting points I found.

  • In the past many famous writers spoke against the use of exclamation marks. F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own jokes.”
  • The book Send: The Essential guide to Email for Office and Home states that “Thanks!!” is much friendlier than “Thanks” and using an exclamation mark for “I’ll see you at the conference!” shows that you are excited, but without an exclamation mark it is just stating a fact.
  • Emails can be boring so using exclamation marks can help make the email more exciting.
  • In the past, many typewriters did not have a key for the exclamation mark.
  • Females use exclamation marks more often than men.
  • Exclamation marks were first seen in 1400 and possibly come from the Latin lo, which means joy.
  • Some people like the increase in the use of exclamation marks (like me) and other people do not! 

One more point of advice is that if you decide to use exclamation marks, don’t use too many in one email. It is unnecessary and may be mistaken for sarcasm or insincerity.