Dreyer's English - Benjamin Dreyer 2022

Question marks and exclamation points
56 assorted things to do (and not to do) with punctuation
The stuff in the front

51.

If a sentence is constructed like a question but isn’t intended to be one, you might consider concluding it with a period rather than a question mark. “That’s a good idea, don’t you think?” means something quite different from “That’s a horrible idea, isn’t it.”

52.

Go light on the exclamation points. When overused, they’re bossy, alarming, and, ultimately, wearying. Some writers say you should use no more than a dozen exclamation points per book; others insist that you should use no more than a dozen exclamation points in a lifetime.

53.

That said, it would be irresponsible not to properly convey with an exclamation mark the excitement of something like “Your hair is on fire!” The person with the burning head might not believe you otherwise. And “What a lovely day!” with a period rather than a bang, as some people like to call the exclamation point, might seem sarcastic. Or depressed.

54.

If you’re not writing a comic book, you shouldn’t end any sentence with a double exclamation point or double question mark. You might want to tell your teacher exactly how much you hated the book you’re writing your report on, but do it without getting overexcited.

55.

Sentences beginning with “I wonder” are not questions—they’re simply pondering declarations—and do not conclude with question marks.

I wonder who’s hacking the school website.

I wonder what the king is doing tonight.

56.

Neither are sentences beginning with “Guess who” or “Guess what” questions. If anything, they’re imperatives.

Guess who’s coming to dinner.

SKIP NOTES

*1  Not to be confused with an utterly correct “But Mom said we could go to the movies.”

*2  The government may be reading your emails and texts, but I’m not. If you prefer “Hi John” to “Hi, John,” you go right ahead.

*3  This does not apply to generic references to someone being addressed as “mister,” “miss,” “sir,” or “ma’am,” neither does it apply to terms of endearment like “sweetheart,” “darling,” “cupcake,” or “honey” (unless the honey’s name is Honey).

*4   A biographer would refer to, say, “Henry VIII’s aunt Mary Tudor,” presuming that Henry was not in the habit of cozily addressing her as “Aunt Mary Tudor.”

*5  She was called Nana, if you must know.

*6 You’ll note that Jennifer Longo lowercases the first word of a complete sentence following a colon, and that’s her choice (and the choice of a lot of writers). Just between you and me, I think that capitalizing the first word (the first letter of the first word, that is) of a complete sentence after a colon gives the reader a valuable clue as to how to read on. But we can all agree that a sentence fragment, a list, etc., after a colon should begin with a lowercase letter.

*7  Some people, finding “nos” as the plural of “no” to be unsightly, opt for “noes.” Which is no beauty contest winner either.

*8  Some favor omitting the apostrophe when pluralizing capital letters, but I can’t say I care for the sight of As for more than one A or Us for more than one U. For, I’d say, obvious reasons.

*9  And, for that matter, a “Sr.,” though in truth there’s no reason for the original owner of a name, whether he’s replicated or not (and it’s almost always a he; there are precious few female Sr./Jr. combos), to set himself off as “Sr.” He got there first; it’s his name.

*10  Psst. Take the middle option.

*11  People do occasionally trip over the pluralization of y-ending proper nouns, overextending the usual jelly/jellies, kitty/kitties formula. Nonetheless, JFK and Jackie were not “the Kennedies.”

*12  This foolproof system doesn’t, alas, easily or attractively carry over to non-English s-ending names. Even I wouldn’t address René and his wife, had he had one and had they been on my Christmas-card list, as “the Descarteses.”

*13  Let’s hold to “ladies’ room,” though, if only for parity with “men’s room.”

*14 One might expect to see a comma in that title, between “There” and “God,” and given the chance, I’d set one, but the redoubtable Judy Blume chose not to set a comma, and what the redoubtable Judy Blume has done, no one should think to undo.

*15  Six consecutive words set in italics aren’t going to bother anyone, but I caution you against setting anything longer than a single sentence that way. For one thing, italics weary the eye; for another, multiple paragraphs of text set in italics suggest a dream sequence, and everyone skips dream sequences.

*16  Footnote pop quiz: So why would I hyphenate the likes of “scholarly-looking teenagers” or “lovely-smelling flowers”? Because not all “-ly” words are adverbs. Sometimes they’re adjectives. Really, I’m sorry.

*17  On a Mac, you can create an en dash by typing option-hyphen. On an iPhone, if you lean gently on the hyphen key, an en dash will present itself, as well as an em dash and a bullet. On a PC, I believe you type command—3 and say “Abracadabra!”

*18  I’d originally written “the Mets clobbered the Yankees,” but a friend, reading the text, insisted I switch the teams “FOR REALISM.” Shows you how much I know about (no, I’m not going to write “football,” because some jokes are too easy, even for me) baseball.