It was in my first office job that my habit of writing exclamation mark–ridden work emails first came to my attention. My supervisor noticed the pattern and gently asked me to tone it down. At first I ...

Hi, readers! Let’s talk about email! What’s with all the exclamation points?! I’m serious. Have you noticed how this one punctuation mark dominates your email messages — both those you get and those ...

Let's talk reality distortion. Reality distortion is quite a popular topic these days, what with our reality being bent into all shorts of shapes by the likes of the Apple Vision Pro. Also: The Apple ...

As we gathered punctuation favorites from a range of our favorite writers, novelists, and word-knowledgable people, we ran into a cold, hard fact. Some punctuation marks were hated, perhaps none more ...

In my many, many years as a Catholic, I have given up many, many things for Lent. As a kid, it was usually Milky Ways. In college, it was usually beer. And as an adult, it was shopping or swearing, ...

I was scanning the first draft of an all-staff office memo I had written the other day, trying to strike the just-right balance between exuberance and self-dignity. I reserved the most scrutiny for my ...

When smartphones became indispensable, Generation ! was born. You know who you are. You can’t text mom, tweet about the GOP (whether you’re on Team Blue or Team Red) or order tofu from DoorDash ...

What is an exclamation mark? Sentences that end in an exclamation mark are used to show intense feelings or get attention. You can use an exclamation mark ! to show when your sentence is saying ...

Punctuation is very important in our writing. Without it, writing would just be a mess of letters and words and we wouldn’t be able to breathe when reading! Full stops are needed at the end of most ...

This typical early 1950s family portrait hung on the walls of a proud Cajun grandmother, even as the Bergeron family traveled as a Navy family and grew, as shown by the added cut-out at the bottom.