Once a mark of emphasis or surprise, today the exclamation mark increasingly signals good natured enthusiasm, baseline kindness, and sincerity to the point of earnestness. As a result, it is popping up everywhere, in the least shocking places, at the end of the plainest sentences that defy emphasis. Its absence, likewise, has come to seem almost rude, particularly in email, where “Thanks!” means “Thanks” but “Thanks” means “I have received this.” Unemphasized, even gratitude reads cold.
Irene Gentle, a former editor of the Toronto Star, recently lamented on Twitter that she, of all people, had succumbed to the trend. “I spent decades banning exclamation marks and and a decade using them with increasing frequency,” she wrote, wondering whether this was “maturity” or “desperation.”
Perhaps it was a little of both. But exclamation inflation, as one expert calls it, does not happen in a punctuational vacuum. The story of the rise of the exclamation mark is also the story of the decline of the period, whose meaning is also changing, but in a more negative and sarcastic direction. On this analysis, the meaning of “Thanks.” is downright aggressive.
Periods are cold, stark, final. Add a few more and you change their meaning entirely, to indicate pause or incompleteness.
But exclamation marks are warm and inviting, easy-going and casual. Add a couple more and the meaning is just intensified, like applause.
No, these ending punctuation marks indicate what kind of sentence was uttered or written.
This is what happens when punctuation, indeed, ALL proper grammar is not taught.
It is as vexing as idiots who type "it's" when referring the the third person singular possessive "its", or not starting a sentence with a noun or pronoun (neither of which will be capitalised), or not separating a clause with a comma.
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Every time the media tries to pretend that @antihateca is a reputable source, I'll be right here to remind people who the group's leader is https://t.co/Z9JvtwWcqF https://t.co/SuX6haAJ7a pic.twitter.com/K23tCwGtt7
— Jonathan Kay (@jonkay) October 21, 2022
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The object is to cut off Canadians a la North Korea:
The statement from Marc Dinsdale, Meta Canada's head of media partnerships, outlines concerns with the bill, which proposes to make tech giants pay for the news content they make available on their platforms.
Dinsdale argues that the legislation would essentially make the company pay for content that media companies voluntarily share on the platform, which it says already amounts to "free marketing" for their news products.
"We feel it is important to be transparent about the possibility that we may be forced to consider whether we continue to allow the sharing of news content in Canada," says Dinsdale's statement, adding that Meta is "open to working with the government."
The statement notes Meta's surprise that it was not invited to participate in the House heritage committee's study of the bill.
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"Indigenous science is … a science of the way of knowing the land. It's a way of knowing the water, the air, everything about the Earth. Their knowledge of the weather patterns, their knowledge of how species migrate," Ballard said in an interview with What On Earth. "It's this knowledge that has enabled them to survive."
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A Las Vegas obstetrician-gynecologist who appeared in a campaign ad opposing a GOP congressional candidate killed a woman in a botched abortion and was charged in 1998 with sexually assaulting a minor, according to public records.
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