This lavishly researched book shows that dots and dashes are an essential component of style, whether you\u2019re a medieval monk or Donald Trump<\/p>\n
How do you feel about exclamation marks? Otherwise known as gaspers, screamers, dog\u2019s cocks, or shrieks. In his Modern English Usage, Fowler said that using too many betrays an \u201cuneducated or unpractised writer\u201d. Martin Amis called them \u201cjoke badges\u201d, and Theodor Adorno \u201csoundless cymbal-crashing\u201d. The novelist Elmore Leonard specified that you were allowed only two or three every 100,000 words. He was being generous.<\/p>\n
Florence Hazrat notes that the Nazis\u00a0loved exclamation marks, with Goebbels pencilling in triplets of them into a speech for Hitler. The modern German linguist Konrad Ehlich is described here as believing that \u201cslapping exclamation marks on to\u00a0the\u00a0end of statements turns all utterance into shouting, and all thinking into order\u201d. At the same time she derides male scholars who have complained about previous editors inserting exclamation marks into the speech of Beowulf on the grounds that it feminises the hero.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/e4ef340c46cb87fee5ff4d93edd9eb7a72997b6d\/467_0_3500_2800\/master\/3500.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=ce4ea6314d2e812de202267fd5540551\" "\\"On")
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