{"id":99231,"date":"2026-02-24T01:00:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T06:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=99231"},"modified":"2026-02-23T10:09:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T15:09:51","slug":"qotd-the-exclamation-mark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2026\/02\/24\/qotd-the-exclamation-mark\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: The! Exclamation! Mark!"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:left; padding: 0px 25px 10px 0px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-48672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><em>They<\/em> are everywhere one looks. The mandatory symbol of the overfamiliar: &#8220;We&#8217;ve got your order!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>To the grammatically sane, reading the exclamation mark in its proper mode, the modern world appears increasingly deranged, authored seemingly by caffeinated twelve-year-olds. The delirium jumps at you in emails, on billboards, from the end of every other sentence.<\/p>\n<p>The exclamation mark \u2014 the name a dead giveaway \u2014 means to exclaim. <em>To cry out or speak suddenly or excitedly, as from surprise, delight, horror, etc.<\/em> That line and dot seize your attention. Help! Now, it seizes your last nerve. Stop! If everything is exclamatory, then nothing is.<\/p>\n<p>To the cynic, the exclamation mark is a hypodermic needle spiking foreign joy into the bloodstream of language. With each excitable email, I wonder, is this person in need of urgent medical attention? Or have they overdosed on <em>Adderall<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>Christopher Gage, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oxfordsour.com\/p\/against-enthusiasm\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Against Enthusiasm&#8221;, <em>Oxford Sour<\/em><\/a>, 2025-11-21.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They are everywhere one looks. The mandatory symbol of the overfamiliar: &#8220;We&#8217;ve got your order!&#8221; To the grammatically sane, reading the exclamation mark in its proper mode, the modern world appears increasingly deranged, authored seemingly by caffeinated twelve-year-olds. The delirium jumps at you in emails, on billboards, from the end of every other sentence. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,57,41],"tags":[97,400,139],"class_list":["post-99231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-humour","category-quotations","tag-advertising","tag-language","tag-psychology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-pOv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99231"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101011,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99231\/revisions\/101011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}