Recently, I found a memo my brother received in the
course of his working at a local gas station. The memo
began:
Attention: All Staff
- Smoke breaks must be taken by one person at
a time and one person only!!!!!!! Why am I constantly
seeing two people or more staff at a time at the sides
of the buildings??????????? It does not matter how
busy or how slow we may be at the time, this is a
store security issue and a customer service
issue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, here's the thing, please don't fucking do
this.
Don't waste punctuation, as it makes you look
dumb. Periods come in groups of one or three (the
group of three is called an ellipsis). Same with
exclamations points and question marks. Using an
exclamation point, "!", insinuates surprise, but
don't use "!!!!!" to insinuate a lot of surprise, as
it just doesn't. "?" implies confusion or
inquiry, but "?????" does not imply lots of
confusion.
There are very few cases where combinations are
used. Some people find it acceptable to use "?!" to
imply a surprised question. Elipses can be used with
exclamation marks or question marks to imply a delay.
For instance: "...!" or "...?". But that's about
it.
So how can we imply lots of surprise, for instance?
Use words! That's what they're there for. The sentence
"Smoke breaks must be taken by one person at a time
and one person only" is already in a surprised and
angry tone. It only needs one exclamation point.
Now, off you go, and remember this little lesson.
It is very important!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!