three question marks - exciting punctuation blog entry!!??? ... no

“The question mark is the universal symbol of something unknown. We are prepared to solve any puzzle, riddle, mystery, enigma, or conundrum which may be brought to us.” Jupiter Jones

I consider it a psychological anomaly that I should love this line from The Three Investigators, that I should have loved this motif nearly so long as I have loved words, and yet have fundamental difficulties with the question mark as a writer.

Even though this sentence is not punctuated with a question mark, do you know anyway that it is a question. How is it you know this. Perhaps that it has already undergone transformation, so that it doesn't need marking?

But of course that last question needed to be marked, because it was not transformed using a wh- or an auxiliary reposition. Similarly, the exclamation. Exclamatory statements need not be marked, they are easy to spot: "What a good job you did." There it is. And it is further unnecessary to make imperatives or declarative statements into exclamations, because they actually just continue to be declarative or imperative, regardless, you can only make them into interrogatives, using the question mark, which, then has more of a place than exclamation points, which seem to me to be only signs of either laziness or being annoyingly ironic about exclamations. What a stupid thing to do. ... ... That's where my ironic "!!" should have gone.


Our signature is three exclamation points. The exclamation point is the universal symbol for the awkwardly emphasized. We will over-emote any advertisement, take the impact out of any heartfelt expression, big or small, which may be brought to us. I.M. Boring

Sorry for the drab. Got tired of emoting on the blog. My fingers start to feel like syrup and I have to stop. This is like a palate cleanser.