PIC No. 41:
• Title: An Admirable Point: A Brief History of the Exclamation Mark!
• Author: Florence Hazrat
• Publisher: GODINE (March 28, 2023, 176 pages)
• Management Bucket #19 of 20: The Printing Bucket (aka The Communication Bucket)
Welcome to Issue No. 41 of PAILS IN COMPARISON, the value-added sidekick of John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. This blog features my “PICs”—shorter reviews of helpful books—with comparisons to other books in my 20 management buckets (core competencies) filing system.
Stop Laughing at Your Own Jokes!!!!!
First, let’s get one thing straight. Florence Hazrat’s short book on the exclamation point (I mean, the exclamation “mark”—as it’s known in the UK) is so well written that I hesitated. Full stop. (That’s another UK oddity to my American ears.) Dare I write a review and expose my feeble, sophomoric vocabulary—coupled with the likely inappropriate sequencing of the King’s English?
Second, I pray this review won’t deter you from reading this exquisite book, An Admirable Point: A Brief History of the Exclamation Mark! I can think of dozens of friends and colleagues who will devour this history book.
Wait a minute! It’s not really a history book! It’s more like an everything bagel (or scone?) with your favorite Starbucks drink, enjoyed with amiable friends—who are ready to stop whatever they’re doing while you read paragraph after paragraph after paragraph to them, with feeling, including all appropriate verbal exclamation points and marks!
If you loved Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, by Lynne Truss, you’ll champion this book. (By the way, Truss dedicates Eats, Shoots & Leaves “to the memory of the striking Bolshevik printers of St. Petersburg who, in 1905, demanded to be paid the same rate for punctuation marks as for letters, and thereby directly precipitated the first Russian Revolution.”)
You gotta read this! The history journey in An Admirable Point is fascinating—but there’s more. Did you know that it was not until the middle of the 18th century when ! became an accepted member of the punctuation family? And it took a while before all the foundries across Europe would sell the ! to printers? Did you know the first typewriter in 1867 did not include an exclamation point?
“In fact, a dedicated ! typewriter key continued to be so rare that the 1973 Secretary’s Manual still explained how to create one by performing the dot-apostrophe manoeuvre.”
Writers of books, articles, essays, reports, websites, emails, texts, and Amazon reviews—will all appreciate the therapeutic comfort from reading An Admirable Point. I’ve been jabbed frequently for my injudicious use of the exclamation point. The author piles on with her laundry lists from the naysayers who describe our types with such venom. Forget the sticks and stones—these killing words (!!!) actually do hurt some of us. When we use !, we’ve been labeled:
• “excitable, screechy, and frenetic”
• “the sure sign of a diseased mind”
• “too noisy, too attention-grabbing, too powerful, too present.”
• “the selfie of grammar”
• And if we use five exclamation points in a row? That’s “a sign of someone wearing his underpants on his head.”
And there’s this:
• “F. Scott Fitzgerald declared that exclamation marks are like laughing at your own jokes.”
• Creative writing adviser Noah Lukeman writes that perhaps “the bright green dress” or “the flaming pink scarf” may require an !, on occasion, but only “…every five years, when it is needed, until then, like those clothes, it is best left in the closet.”
Exclamation points have torpedoed their way into pop culture:
• LL Cool J raps punctuation rules on the children’s TV show, The Electric Company. (View here!)
• The lack of an exclamation point prompts Elaine’s breakup with then-boyfriend Jake on Seinfeld. (View here!)
• Classical pianist/comedian Victor Borge delights with a LOL five-minute tutorial on “Phonetic Punctuation.” The ! finally gets it due! (View here!)
The exclamation point has been called “the prince of punctuation.” According to the author, women tend to use ! more than men. I’m guessing, however, that if you compared the four social styles (Analyticals, Drivers, Amiables, and Expressives), both genders in the Expressive category use far more !!! than the rest of us.
This pointy trip through the lands of literature, poetry, art, politics, religion and more—reveals fascinating side trips through the eyes of punctuation. Example: How many exclamation points were in the original languages of the Bible? (Google it!)
The chapter on politics was my favorite side show. I now have permission to critique any and all political campaign fonts and punctuation! Read more on the “Jeb!” logo from Jeb Bush’s campaign. Why did the Obama re-election team tussle over “Forward” vs. “Forward.” with a full stop? Fascinating! And the ubiquitous “KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON” signs—those Ministry of Information’s posters for wartime Britain? “A bit of a flop at the time.”
Spoiler Alert!!! Florence Hazrat’s head-turning phrases are frosting (or icing) on the cake. Enjoy a cuppa and drink deeply from her creativity. Describing one of many attempts at early and late innovations in punctuation, the author describes one unique proposal: “a sort of full stop with a comma or apostrophe hovering to its right. A cheeky little textual earring dangling from the top of the line.”
On today’s emojis: “…it’s hard to imagine the likes of Luther or Erasmus sending prayerhands. Instead, writers harnessed punctuation to capture and evoke emotion, well aware that the naked content of words without the dress of feelings would have a hard time convincing anyone.”
You will love this wonderful book!!!!! (Yikes! I may have exceeded my allotment of exclamation marks—and now I’m absolutely knackered.) Note: No surprise for a book on !!!, you will find a few adult words on a few pages. (Full stop.)
PAILS IN COMPARISON: Reading this book reminded me of several other must-read books in the Printing Bucket (aka the Communications Bucket), plus other buckets/core competencies.
[ ] Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, by Lynne Truss. (Order from Amazon. This book is referenced in the Printing Bucket in Mastering the Management Buckets.)
[ ] Keys to Great Writing, by Stephen Wilbers (Read my review.)
[ ] 15 Minutes Including Q&A: A Plan to Save the World From Lousy Presentations, by Joey Asher (Read my review.)
[ ] Doesn't Hurt to Ask: Using the Power of Questions to Communicate, Connect, and Persuade, by Trey Gowdy (2020 Book-of-the-Year! Read my review.)
To order from Amazon, click on the title for An Admirable Point: A Brief History of the Exclamation Mark!, by Florence Hazrat. And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy. For more book reviews, visit John Pearson’s Buckets Blog and subscribe to Your Weekly Staff Meeting.
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