Exclamation marks

Question

Someone told me that his teacher told him that each sentence is limited to one exclamation mark! Another person told me that her teacher told her that no such rule exists!! And just this morning I read a letter written by the famous American novelist Ernest Hemingway, in which he uses three exclamation marks!!!

I am confused. Would someone please give me guidance?

THANK YOU

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

In my opinion, exclamation marks should be used sparingly, otherwise they become devalued.  Since an exclamation mark must come at the end of a sentence (in lieu of a full stop), it is correct that each sentence can only have one exclamation mark.

Enoon · Answer

Your question is about style. There is no universally accepted set of rules for style. There isn't even a general consesus about it. There are, however, different kinds of writing, and each allows more or less freedom in style.

Fiction writing allows multiple exclamation points, multiple question marks and even the two together. They are meant to show emphasis, especially in dialogue. They are a way of using punctuation as special effects "Hey!!!!!" is much more agitated an utterance than "Hey!", and "What?" is much less puzzled a question than "What????" Same goes for personal writing like dairies and letters.

In formal writing, or indeed anything other than fiction and poetry, uses only single exclamation points, and even those almost never. Not too long ago, the exclamation point had a prescribed use as a marker for inversion (What a good boy am I! vs. What a good boy I am.) This still applies. You should never use it for emphasis. You should let your words do the work. If you use an exclamation point to say, "Here's a surprising fact", the reader will rightly rejoin, "I'll be the judge of that, thank you."

Anonymous · Answer

Thank you, Anonymous, for your reply. I shall certainly take your advice into account.

Thank you, enoon, for your very thoughtful and insightful comments.

Exclamation marks

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