AN ADMIRABLE POINT

The history of a much-maligned punctuation mark.

In her first book, Hazrat notes that many writers have warned against using the exclamation point because it “provides cheap emphasis.” As the author notes, it “grabs our attention, whether we want it to or not,“and it exists in nearly every language. Early civilizations developed a system of signs—comma, colon, period, other punctuation marks came later—to help us understand the anatomy of sentences. In 1399, a Florentine lawyer and politician combined the dot and apostrophe, but its use was inconsistent. The “earliest mentions” of the exclamation point first appeared in English in 1551, and Ben Jonson’s 1765 Dictionary definition increased its influence. After a discussion of the ups and downs of tonal punctuation over time and grammar’s role in punctuation, Hazrat turns to Anton Chekhov’s story “The Exclamation Point.” She gleefully notes that in 45 of Elmore Leonard’s novels, there are only 49 of them. Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children has 2,131, and Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities 2,400! Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea contains only one. Hazrat offers up a lot of punctuation trivia as well as information about the other marks, including the “infamous interrobang,” which is “not really a new mark at all, but rather two old ones squeezed together.” Hazrat also looks at Richard Artschwager’s sculpture Exclamation Point; he called it the “prince of punctuation.” Theodor Adorno likened the mark to a “soundless clashing of cymbals.” Hazrat notes the preponderance of the exclamation point in comic books, poster art, and political advertising. The author notes with chagrin Donald Trump’s “proclivity for the frenetic use of !” and follows its role in the digital world. “Among all glyphs,” she writes, the bold mark is “most available, and most versatile, the most recognisable and most ironic.” In the end, its job is to “attend to admiration” and “point out wonder.”

A delightfully sprightly and pun-laden history.