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 ...

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 ...

For my job, I send lots e-mails, and I have to be fast about it. The easiest way to seem friendly and not like a robot is to just throw on some exclamation points. I'm worried it's gotten out of ...

We all know how important punctuation marks are in our scripts, because punctuation fills our writing with expression. We pause, stop, emphasise, or question using a comma, a period, an exclamation ...

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 ...

It’s hard to believe the year we have had. Even harder that a punctuation mark could help explain it. But when you consider the history of the interrobang—a largely forgotten symbol that marries both ...

Word, word, word, word, word, punctuation mark. This is how we read. Sometimes there are more words, or fewer. Occasionally additional marks—commas, em-dashes—enter the mix. But that’s pretty much how ...

FEW writers know when to employ an exclamation point. It is a tricky bit of punctuation, frankly. I rue its appearance in e-mails, as it raises the bar of enthusiasm to a level that is quite difficult ...

The 45th President of the United States is a big fan of a particular type of punctuation – but what does this addiction really mean? Philip Cowell finds out. There is really only one rule when it ...

Last month, just before Christmas, the director of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence sent out a crisp missive to the museum's staff. 'The way people write on social media,' said Eike Schmidt, 'is ...