Thursday, December 11, 2014

My Pet Peeve in Grammar

by Jackie King

I’m not sure when writers started using double punctuation at the end of a sentence, but anytime I read this in any story, I want to throw that book across the room. This weird, double-punctuation always consists of a question mark plus an explanation point at the end of a sentence. For example:

“Does that man have a gun?!”

Rather than:

“Does that man have a gun?”

Let’s suppose the scene had already been set up with our protagonist observing a man dressed in camo. The guy is trying to conceal himself behind a large indoor plant and a woman’s voice rings out,“Does that man have a gun?”

Note from reader: I don’t need the author calling my attention to the fact that this is exciting.

The addition of the exclamation point pulls me out of the scene, the book, and all I hear is the author is shouting in my head, “I’m afraid you’re a little dense and won’t understand how exciting this sentence is, if I don’t draw attention to it.”

Note to all writers: Readers are not dumb!

You will notice that in the above sentence that I didn't use both a period and an exclamation point, as if drawing attention to the fact this is a declarative sentence. That would be stupid, wouldn’t it? (Single punctuation mark.)

It’s equally stupid to use two punctuation marks at the end of an interrogative sentence.

Do you have a pet grammar-peeve? I’d love to hear about it.

Cheers,

Jackie

6 comments:

Marilyn Meredith a.k.a. F. M. Meredith said...

Most exclamation points are unnecessary if what the person is saying is exciting.

Bill Kirton said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bill Kirton said...

Pet grammar peeves? How long have you got? My wife gets fed up with my constant moaning as professional broadcasters commit grammatical massacres. There’s an awful carelessness about grammar and the actual meaning of words nowadays. Why are we now ‘bored of’, ‘fed up of’ instead of bored and fed up ‘with’?
‘Of’ means ‘belonging to’ – placed with ‘bored’ it makes no sense.
As for explanation marks, Elmore Leonard’s 5th ‘rule’ covers them:
‘Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.’

Jackie King said...

Thanks Marilyn. I didn't make this comment in my post, but totally agree.
Jackie

Jackie King said...

I agree with every word you wrote, Bill. Thanks for responding.
Jackie

Jackie King said...

I agree with every word you wrote, Bill. Thanks for responding.
Jackie