Hello, and Happy December.

I have a somber mission on this fine Tuesday: To write a newsletter entirely without exclamation points. To convey my thoughts and feelings—somehow—through words alone. Or at least without my beloved [!] which I've come to rely on too heavily.

We saw Ricky's mom at Thanksgiving, and I brought her a birthday present, Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, by Mary Norris, long-time copy editor for The New Yorker. I inscribed it something like: "Happy Birthday, Joy. I'm so lucky to have a mother-in-law who appreciates grammar!" Because how could I convey my great enthusiasm without the [!] ?

And then: "Thank you for instilling that same appreciation in Ricky." I gave that sentence a period, but when I read it over it seemed flat. So I added TWO EXCLAMATION POINTS. "Thank you for instilling that same appreciation in Ricky!!"

Oy.

It's mostly a woman thing, I think, this fear-of-conveying-the-wrong-tone. Fear-of-sounding-unfriendly (or terse). Desire to come across as CHIPPER!

When asked about exclamation marks in this Guardian interview, Mary Norris says, "They should be used conservatively. Elmore Leonard said there should be no more than two or three per 100,000 words. I think it should be two or three in a lifetime."

But even Mary plays fast and loose with the [!] when she's on Twitter. 

I use a lot of [!]'s when I'm writing dialogue. To exclaim, yes, but also to convey over-eagerness, anxiety, false bravado. (In female and male characters, thankyouverymuch.) I think I think I'm doing that when I use them in casual writing. The exclamation points are intended to be taken in quotes, like, "Look how silly I am!" "I'm emoting!" "I mean this, but I don't really mean this!!!"

Hrmmm. I do love them.

But next time I'll stop and take a deep breath before I ink three in a row.

*****