Skype blogging guru and technology guardian Jaanus has a bit of a thing about exclamation marks. On the whole, don’t use ‘em. It’s a good principle.
I confess I am a chronic over-user of puctuation. Hyphen-enabled nouns… dots; even colons: bring em on!
In my defence, as written language becomes more and more conversational and abbreviated, I think everyone else’s punctuation may loosen up and become as chaotic as mine. And this may not be all bad.
Take this, from Mr M. Proust of France – one of his shorter sentences:
“On s’éveille, on voit quatre heures à sa montre, ce n’est que quatre heures du matin, mais nous croyons que toute la journée s’est écoulée, tant ce sommeil de quelques minutes et que nous n’avions pas cherché nous a paru descendu du ciel, en vertu de quelque droit divin, énorme et plein comme le globe d’or d’un empereur.”
Dude, commas are not the only fruit!