Saturday, March 10, 2007

Misused Abused And Overused

"Great Scott Holmes!" exclaimed Watson.
That's the one, the exclamation mark. And no more a stickler for it's proper use than I.
Deliberately, though extremely rarely, misusing it at the end of the Sea Shepherd article lets me raise the issue of "Why don't we?"

I won't say why don't we have an alternative, because it's not an alternative we need.
Why don't we have a kind of a "Multiple Meaning Mark," a fine example being my incorrect use here of employing quotation marks to draw attention or emphasis to. A special kind of mark, one that means; well; you know what I mean.

Kind of a "know what I mean know what I mean nudge nudge wink wink know what I mean?" kind of a mark, a universal punctuation mark, one that transcends the language barrier, know what I mean!

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