Writing in the Guardian, Stuart Jeffries contends that our email boxes are being infested with exclamation marks, known as bangs or bangers (without mash) to some people. Jacob Rubin also wrote on the subject a couple of years ago in Slate. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Bangs in your Inbox”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
Think about all the written communications you read and write every day. All those emails, all those text messages.
Am I the only one who thinks it’s led to an outbreak of exclamation marks? Actually, I know I’m not, because there was a long essay recently in the Guardian newspaper in which columnist Stuart Jeffries argues that the exclamation mark is enjoying a renaissance.
And Grant, I think it’s true, don’t you?
Yes, really? Huh. I’m so excited.
I always wonder, how do you read that stuff, Martha, when you see an exclamation mark? If you read it aloud, what does it do to your voice? Because I have a hard time forcing that kind of enthusiasm.
I know you do. No, but it seems to be what the exclamation marks are calling for. I’m supposed to sound really excited when I read whatever they have to say.
Well, it’s funny that you have that reaction to it because one of the things it says in the article is that women in email tend to use exclamation marks a lot more than men. But you know what? I have to admit, and maybe you’ve seen this in my emails to you, Grant. I mean, I’m a little embarrassed at how often I use exclamation marks, but it just seems to make more sense to me in email.
We’ve talked on this program before about linguistic restitution, which is when you add something to written text in order to kind of make up for the fact that nuance is lost in print that might otherwise be obvious when you’re speaking aloud. You’re paying back this written content with an exclamation mark so that you can let somebody know, for example, that you’re kind of joking or that you have something else on your mind, that you’re being lighthearted.
So if I said, give it back to me, period, you might think, he’s really upset about me borrowing the book and not returning it. If I said, give it back to me, exclamation mark, well, you might automatically assume maybe that I’m being a little more lighthearted about it.
Yeah, I think I’d hear a little lilt in your voice. Yeah, you would know that I probably was joking because the exclamation mark is generally a positive mark, right?
Yeah, but I wonder if the medium of email in particular draws exclamation marks out of people. I mean, I have actually begun to just write emails the way I feel them and then go back through them and start picking out the exclamation marks like a typographical lint. I mean, it’s kind of embarrassing.
Aren’t you depriving yourself of some of your natural character, though? Your recipients aren’t really getting the real you?
That could be. Well, if you’ve got something to tell us about the overuse of exclamation marks or any other punctuation for that matter, by all means, pop it into an excited email to words@waywordradio.org or give us a telephone call at 1-877-929-9673 or just stand on the rooftop and shout.
