One night a couple weeks ago, K was relaxing while I finished up writing some stuff. She had picked a Netflix series called ‘Explained.’ Specifically, the episode about (wait for it)… exclamation marks. Coincidentally, I had just seen this Instagram post by Tim Urban (aka the Wait But Why guy). I’m haunted by exclamation marks, so I stopped what I was doing and settled in next to her to watch.
It kicked off with the narrator saying: ‘Every day around the world millions struggle with the same question… two exclamation points or not two exclamation points.’
Those simple little upside-down lowercase i’s can be friendly or, well, too friendly. They can lighten the tone or make you seem unprofessional. If you don’t use them? Maybe you’re just mean. Heck, Elaine got dumped over exclamation marks in a classic episode of Seinfeld.
Arg!!!*
I relate with Tim Urban’s dilemma and tend to follow the one-exclamation-mark-per-email not-a-rule rule. That’s me. What should you do? Sorry, I can’t really help except to offer, as the Netflix episode ended (spoiler), anything kind of goes.
* That use of three ! was 100% intentional as I felt it accurately represented my feelings on the matter…
