I'm a big fan of punctuation. The semi-colon is probably my favorite (followed closely by the parentheses), although you wouldn't know it from the comments I (sporadically, admittedly; my bad) leave on your blogs.
From my comments, there is one clear punctuation prizewinner.
(wait for it)
The exclamation mark!!! Wohooo!! Hells yeah!
Partly this is due to the fact that I am always! so! excited! to finally be catching up on blog reading; however, I suspect my excessive exclamations are mostly due to two other factors:
1. I do a lot of blog reading on Saturday late mornings/early afternoons, after I've had four cups (according to my Mr. Coffee, but really it's just two cups in the world of Actual Coffee Drinkers).
2. I do the rest of my blog reading late at night, so I must! over! compensate! Not that I do this consciously, of course.
What is your favorite?
18 comments:
Of course the exclamation point! Sometimes I'm afraid I over use it, like Elaine on Seinfeld.
In my blog writing I over-use the parentheses (similar to you) and in commenting I over-use the exclamation point. I've also noticed exclamations insidiously creeping into my professional emails and parentheses into my writing, and I'm not studiously working hard to prune them back out. People used to say that blogging would make us better writers (practice makes perfect), but now I think it just makes us overly casual!
Ok, so what is up with the Mr. Coffee cup sizes? You practically have to measure those cups with a tablespoon.
To answer your questions, in posts I overuse parenthesis. I have a lot of parenthetical thoughts when blog posting. But in comments, it's in exclamation marks! I'm just so excited!
Interrobang?! I love the power of question mark combined with the exclamation mark. What else makes "You're not serious?!" so powerful
B: haha! I do feel that it makes me sound a bit too earnest at times.
ScienceWoman: You might be on to something there! I *do* use an awful lot of exclamation points in my emails. Perhaps my students just think I'm yelling, although I do get the occasional I'M NOT YELLING JUST TYPING LOUDLY email from them.
Amanda: Yes. 5 oz does not a cup of coffee make.
FAW: Love it! I was going to originally post that I enjoy a good bang or four, but I thought that would give the wrong impression. I mean, srlsy?!
Semicolons kick motherfucking ass!
I'm with you and Comrade on the semicolon superiority.
I too am fond of the semicolon, but I've really come to love the dash. I also egregiously overuse parentheses, and the dash can help that a little.
In comments, I use way more emoticons than I would like. Friends tell me that in emails, I often sound brusque when I don't mean to be, and I worry that happens in comments as well. I hope a lame little winky smiley will convey my intended light tone. ;) :p :o :o)
The ellipsis is my friend.
Parentheses!
I overuse the ellipsis...
So CPP, Will, and EGF are Team Semicolon. Wohoo!
I see that ScienceGirl is making a strong showing for parentheses (yay!). But what is this I see? A vote for ellipsis from DocE and Cath? Excellent!
I must say that I'm surprised that no one made a plug for the umlaut!! http://www.zazzle.com/umlaut_balls_green_tshirt-235704835823390613
My personal favorite is {[(nesting)]} parentheses, but you can't write a proper academic article with a colon in the title. For that reason, your VAP series automatically qualifies as a proper academic article.
I also like using the inverted ? from Spanish to flag key question elements when presenting a multi-part word problem in class.
I haven't developed a favorite, yet. But I can tell you my least favorite is the m dash — simply because — it is — over-used.
I'm trying to curb my parenthetical statements (I'm a complete addict, as you can see) so I'm going to say that parentheses are NOT my favorite. I do love my semicolons because they make my run-on sentences officially ok (right? right?...)
I'm a period gal primarily because I like doing the whole dot dot dot [...] thing. My msn messenger conversations are filled with [...]. I try very hard to avoid doing it on my blog posts.
Dr. Pion: woohoo! Can I add this to my CV? Inverted ? ...awesome!
Aw, Field Notes! But I love both the en AND em dashes!
Short Geologist: Never give up the ( )s. Never!
Shell: I think we'll all forgive you if you start dotting your posts. At least I think so....
I'm a comma girl, always putting unnecessary commas in all over the place. Srsly, I have to go back and edit and take out like half the commas I use everytime. It's like I pause to think, and write a comma (see? I can't stop!!! - Three esclamation marks in a row are good too, is there a word for them?)
Of course, nothing beats the finality expressed by a period.
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