How Many Exclamation Points Do You Need To Seem Genuinely Enthusiastic? (theatlantic.com)

How many exclamation points does it take to exclaim something? One, a human of sound mind and a decent grasp of punctuation might say. But, on the internet, it often doesn't. The Atlantic: Not anymore. Digital communication is undergoing exclamation-point inflation. When single exclamation points adorn every sentence in a business email, it takes two to convey true enthusiasm. Or three. Or four. Or more. I noticed this in my own social circles recently. Multiple exclamation points were popping up in mundane places, not attached to hyperbole or any kind of frenzied emotion. A simple work email might yield a "Sounds good!!!" I find myself doing it, too. "All of these quirks of social media -- that would include exclamation points, and all caps, and repetition of letters, those are the three main ones that show enthusiasm -- people use more of them," says Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. This sort of inflation is a natural linguistic phenomenon that regularly happens to words, like how awesome was once reserved for that which truly struck awe into a quavering heart and is now scarcely more than a verbal thumbs up. But this time it's happening to punctuation.

Comments

Well

[Chas]

I dunno!!!!!!!111111ELEVENTY!!!!1111

Use exactly as many as needed: 0

[Anubis IV]

With the possible exceptions of dealing with clients, firing employees, and accusing people of crimes, the cumulative number of exclamation points you should ever use in your business e-mails is exactly 0.

For social e-mails, the appropriate number of exclamation points is also 0. If you're the sort of person who gets excited when you see a video of a cat falling off a countertop and feel compelled to use an exclamation point, your feelings have misled you. Resist the urge to use one. If you find you are having to use more than one exclamation point to convey the immensity of your enthusiasm when you discover that the cat is named Mr. Wiggles and that there's a second video where he's wearing a silly hat, that's a problem of your own creation. First, stop using so many exclamation points and people will come to stop expecting them, making it all the more emphatic when you deign to use even a single one. Second, stop watching those videos. Life is too short to waste it like that.

Gonna go with Terry on this one

[TechnoLuddite]

"Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign of a diseased mind." -- Terry Pratchett, "Eric"