The exclamation mark divided the world | Hacker News Reader

The exclamation mark divided the world

theguardian.com

22 pointssamizdis21 comments

I've noticed that German speakers use the exclamation mark more liberally and it's used to indicate imperative mood, even though German verbs generally have a distinct imperative form.

You'll see this is common items like signs - "Keep off the grass!" or "Danger of electrocution!".

Over here, across the eastern German border, it's usually reserved for situations where you want to express frustration. People using it in the "enthusiastic" manner, that's apparently common in SV, come off as insincere.

Good point about the use of exclamation mark at the end of imperative sentences in German. The article leads with Adorno's quote:

> sociologist Theodor Adorno felt the ! signified an “unbearable gesture of authority”.

Calling the exclamation mark a sign of authority makes a lot more sense if one knows that in the native language of Adorno, it is a grammar rule to use it at the end of an imperative sentence.

The use of the exclamation mark for imperative sentences is frequent in many European languages, not only in German.

I believe that there should be 2 different kinds of exclamation marks, because there are 2 very different vocal intonations, one for imperative sentences, like commands, and another for exclamations denoting surprise, pleasure, pain, enthusiasm etc., and these 2 kinds of intonations are also very different from the other 2 kinds of intonations, for questions and for enunciative sentences.

For example, one could have used a single exclamation mark for imperative intonation and a double exclamation mark for proper exclamations, or vice-versa.

Unfortunately, at this time it is not likely that anyone would ever be able to enforce any change in the use of the traditional punctuation, no matter how ambiguous it might be.

Exclamation marks always remind me of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9mRtTahZTM

> “Sorry”, “I’m no expert”, and “!” supposedly all “denote lack of confidence”. Frequent use “makes you appear unfit for leadership”, according to economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett

Very telling, about economists at least.

> the exclamation mark “reveals the insecurities of millennials”, who are over-eager to please and working hard to acquire a reputation for chirpy enthusiasm

Seems like all millennials I know are very untypical, then.

I don't really care what people use, just don't write things like this!!! or with tons of emoji!!!!! because I have yet to see a single text written like that which was worth reading.

I don't think the implication was that millennials do this!!!!!! Rather they might say "Sure thing!" or "of course!".

Though I wonder how much is trying to be "chirpy" and how much is preemptively avoiding seeming abrupt or rude, particularly as most millennials have been fairly junior in the workforce until quite recently, meaning that they are often "talking upwards".

It's meant to convey emotional sincerity with positive connotations, compared to the un-punctuated and often sardonic or sarcastic chatroom and text message writing that millennials were the first generation to grow up with.

In that writing style, a period "." means you are serious enough to use punctuation, but in a negative way: you are annoyed or upset. A "!" means that you are also serious enough to use punctuation, but trying to convey earnestness or something positive.

People love to psychoanalize the millennial generation from a distance. Why not ask some millennials why they do it?

Well, I am a millennial. Zero is a distance, admittedly[.!]

> things like this!!!

"The dog bit the man."

"The dog bit the man, and the man bit back!"

"The dog bit the man, the man bit back and was shot by the PETA!!!"

It is fully legit and it would be part of the theoretical scheme of things even if we did not live in a world of absurdities. I used it in these pages the other day, and it was in a paragraph worth reading - I did it in full awareness and proportion. Proportion to the very real absurdities.

Just use things as appropriate.

Made me think of that scene from Seinfeld.

Which one!?

The Exclamation Point | 1993

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18P3nwqMlLs

Gotta love Jerry saying "I've never heard of a relationship being affected by punctuation".

> In classical times, PEOPLEWROTELIKETHISMAKINGITREALLYHARDTOSIGHTREADANUNKNOWNTEXT. They considered writing not as a separate manifestation of language, but rather as a record of speech, and it didn’t occur to anybody to distinguish between words or even sentences.

Is that really right? I can believe it happened sometimes but it seems implausible that happened all or even most of the time. I can see that the idea of a sentence could be a bit fuzzy but so long as there's a concept of words there could surely be the idea to separate them.

As far as I know, all of the written languages around the Mediterranean had very little usage of spaces and punctuation until the Middle Ages. Ancient Greek art even had writing styles where the text would be written in spirals, or alternate between left-to-right and right-to-left. I can't vouch for any argument for or against a reason why that was the case.

> I can't vouch for any argument for or against a reason why that was the case.

It's not their fault the spacebar hadn't been invented yet.

The alternating left-to-right right-to-left lines were done because you could read it easier that way - they used to have gigantic books/scrolls, the lines were very long.

You may enjoy this video[1], despite the premise being about semicolons it goes and touches a bit on the history of punctuation

https://youtu.be/vOZgnKqzKEI [1]

I wonder if deciding where word boundaries should be was not always obvious.

Italian "give it to me" can be three words or one depending on order. me lo da / dammelo.

Lots of verb conjugations are basically contractions of the root/infinitive with a version of have/be. scriverai (scrivere hai) you will write (to write you have).

Combine that with a fixed written language and constantly evolving spoken language, and it gets muddier. Like my first example, since classical Latin didn't have articles but late Latin did.

Would like to hear from native speakers of Romance/neo-Latin languages if that seems plausible or like total bs.

> "And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head."

Maskerade, Terry Pratchett

See https://wiki.lspace.org/Multiple_exclamation_marks

What about the interrobang!? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrobang

Apologies for noting, but you spelt the interrobang wrong. (It is "interro-bang". That is also a mnemonic. What you instead did was to dump a rushed knee-jerk position there and then start reconsidering it and nurturing doubts. The interrobang is when first you disbelieve as absurd but are progressively facing the ghastly reality that the suspicion may be a fact - the doubt dissipates.)

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