Punctuation with Personality!

It’s no surprise that people say that if they died and came back as punctuation, they’d want to be an exclamation point. That’s because exclamation points have the most fun!

An exclamation point changes a sentence that might be mildly threatening into a happy sentence. Take this sentence: "You have to tell me your secrets." Slightly overbearing, right? But: "You have to tell me your secrets!" Completely different!

But punctuation anxiety has invaded the world of these happy exclamation points. This is true because their domain is being invaded by emoticons. Where once exclamation points reigned alone, now you often see :). "You have to tell me your secrets. :)."

At first, exclamation points didn’t worry. They thought their long-time dominance couldn’t be threatened by this upstart. They still chatter about the last line of Gerard Manley Hopkin’s poem God’s Grandeur, even though it was written in 1918:

And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Exclamation points cluck their tongues and ask, "What poem has an emoticon ever appeared in?"

But emoticons have had surprising staying power. So, now, some exclamation points are talking compromise, talking about joining forces with emoticons. Like this: "You have to tell me your secrets! :)"

But emoticons aren't interested in joining forces with a punctuation that they see as past its prime. So dark rumors float around the world of punctuation that exclamation points have contracted a hit on emoticons. But emoticons aren't laying down. And exclamation points might yet regret waging war against :).

Sure, exclamation points still reign over – literally – exclamatory sentences. But who wants all that adrenaline all the time? "Go to hell!" say exclamation points.

Periods are the prima donnas of the punctuation population. They think they’re really, really important because they tell one thought to stop and signal another to start. And when a writer thinks that a sentence has gone on too long and drops a period into the middle of it, periods almost burst with their sense of their own importance. They’re like the traffic cop who thinks that traffic exists to be directed by him.

Commas, in contrast, are professorial. Like, they announce nuances in sentences. They say, "You might pay attention – this is a parenthetical phrase."

Commas could have outsized egos like periods. Because unlike periods, which have basically two uses, commas have basically nine, making commas the punctuation used in "the greatest variety of circumstances." (Garner, Garner’s Modern American Usage.)  But even though they have great utility and importance, commas are the "least emphatic" of punctuation marks. (Garner)

Also, like a good yogi, commas tell you to slow down.

Other punctuation marks whisper that question marks are "confused". But questions marks consider themselves "mysterious".

Semicolons are the wine-bar snobs of the punctuation world. They boast that Garner calls them a "supercomma". They sniff that few people know how or when to use them. They regard themselves as too refined for the everyday world. They look down on the other punctuation marks.

There are many more punctuation marks, each with their own typical personality. But this gives you an introduction to their quirky world.