Dear Universe,

Somebody who never wished to remain anonymous recently complained about my excessive use of exclamation marks.

Ha.

Poor boy, he felt yelled at. But that is not what my exclamation marks mean. When I use exclamation marks, it means I am awake and excitable, but as in person, I am not loud. Ever.

Many, many years ago (four I think), I used to be so stoical and brainy and sober I hardly ever used them. Then I met this wonderful inspiring girl who lives down under — and she uses them all the time:

Sheesh... I'm even too tired to type exclamation marks.

!

Oops - there goes one. Hehehe.

I have become more girly since meeting her; I bet you could easily see the change in my livejournal. I never typed "hehehehe" until I met her, either. Before she infected me with enjoying frivolously girly things, I thought of statements like "The best day ever!" as lies because that's "not empirical" at all. How do you determine if today is actually the best day ever? Yes, I was that sober and earnest.

Thanks to her constant exclamation marked expressions of joy, I no longer have a problem with declaring that something is the best gift ever or the best postcard ever, and I no longer worry about hurting anybody who might have given me a present or written me a postcard previously.

Translators see a lot of sociolinguistic differences in writing style. Russians, even when writing in English, have a totally different handwriting style, and informally and formally, Germans use punctuation very differently from English writers. There are gender, age, and cultural differences. Studies have shown that women use exclamation marks more than men do, and Germans specifically use them in situations where English writers might use commas or full stops ("Betreten verboten! — No trespassing", or "Ruf mich morgen an! — Call me tomorrow.").

Using a comma in the salutation line of a letter is a rather new thing in Germany, and it is the result of intercultural exchance. I remember how Philippe in the movie La Boum II started a letter with

Vic,

...

...

...

That comma was so incredibly French and remarkable and charming I immediately started copying it.

At the moment, I am just as impressed by the aforementioned boy's habit of ending a request with a question mark — that is sooo incredibly touching and irresistable!

Apart from using more exclamation marks than the rest of my funky family taken together, I also overdose on colourful Trillian icons. I know the names of more colours and flowers than them — but anything that has an engine and up to four wheels is a car for me. And anything on up to four legs that barks is a dog!

Linguistic greetings from

Rachel

P.S. For the sober eggheads, here is a good academic discussion of exclamation marks and why some people love them more than others: . And explains the basics about those funky exclamation marks just nicely.