I’m quoted in this Atlantic article about exclamation point inflation. Excerpt:
Much like awesome once served a greater purpose, the exclamation point has been downgraded from a shout of alarm or intensity to a symbol that indicates politeness and friendliness. As Shipley and Schwalbe put it in their guide: “Exclamation points can instantly infuse electronic communication with human warmth.” And that’s what we use them for now.
“The single exclamation mark is being used not as an intensity marker, but as a sincerity marker,” says Gretchen McCulloch, a linguist who studies online communication. “If I end an email with ‘Thanks!,’ I’m not shouting or being particularly enthusiastic; I’m just trying to convey that I’m sincerely thankful, and I’m saying it with a bit of a social smile.” […]
“It’s been totally normalized—at least in my view,” says Jonny Sun, a doctoral student at MIT who studies online communities. “I think the single exclamation point is now very acceptable.”
One could say that Sun is professionally enthusiastic. He is best known for his Twitter account, where he mixes silly jokes with bittersweet humor and earnest aphorisms. He also wrote a graphic novel based on his Twitter. And he uses a lot of exclamation points, especially when he replies to friends or fans. A single one, he says, is so expected at this point that it doesn’t really feel sincere anymore.
“I feel like it’s a stand-in and it doesn’t really connote an authentic emotion,” he says. “A single exclamation point is sort of like: Here’s me showing that I’m being nice and cordial. But two exclamation points would be authentic excitement.” […]
So where does it end? What happens if three exclamation points eventually seem like little more than a friendlier period?“
Probably it ends with switching to a different type of punctuation,” McCulloch says. If the exclamation point is working as a sincerity marker, once people tire of it, “maybe smileys will [become] more acceptable in business contexts.”
This tracks with an interesting theory Sun has about the relationship between sincerity and informal language online. On social media, writing in all caps or using no capitalization at all both feel more genuine than using proper capitalization. “I feel like sincerity, especially online is breaking down any formal affect that we’ve adopted with language,” Sun says. “Sincerity now online is lowercase, quickly typed so it’s fine if there are typos. But then typos become part of it. To me, keysmashing is the most sincere form of excitement.”
One thing that didn’t make it into the article is that we’ve gone through an exclamation mark hyperbole cycle before on the internet: remember when people used to type OMG!!!1!11!! or OMG!!!one!!eleventy!!!!
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