!?!

[Naruzeldamaster]

There are numerous grammar guides that will say when to use an exclamation mark. None of them will recommend using multiple punctuation marks together.

I don't want to give the impression that exclamation marks ought never be used. They ought to be used to end a sentence (never in the middle)--same as periods and question marks. As the name implies, they come at the end of an exclamatory sentence. They can also come at the end of a command.

All rules can be broken by those who know what they're doing. If you are unsure, then you're not the one to be breaking them, just yet.

That's largely why I've been trying to be better about not spamming things like !?! and such like and even my favorite thing to denote teasing/sass/etc the Tilde. (I only ever use one at the end of a sentence, like in place of a period) I still use them once in a blue moon when I feel like it makes sense and even then, yet more rarely.

I don't know enough about 'the rules' to know when or not that I'm breaking them or even to consider myself informed enough to challenge them.
So I'd like to work within the rules of writing to the best ability that I can at the moment.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

That's largely why I've been trying to be better about not spamming things like !?! and such like and even my favorite thing to denote teasing/sass/etc the Tilde. (I only ever use one at the end of a sentence, like in place of a period) I still use them once in a blue moon when I feel like it makes sense and even then, yet more rarely.

I don't know enough about 'the rules' to know when or not that I'm breaking them or even to consider myself informed enough to challenge them.
So I'd like to work within the rules of writing to the best ability that I can at the moment.

As a Lang and Lit junkie, I find this entire progression to be fascinating. Skip may box one of my ears for this, but having watched English go through its growing pains over the last thousand years and twist itself through form after form, I really don't think we can lay claim to any hard and fast rules to language. We've barely had standardized spelling in American English longer than we've had America, itself. We have centuries of narrative which look to our current eyes like gibberish... until you read it aloud. And there, in the nooks and crannies of history, we can finally see that it's all the same language. The only real change has been in the context.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

As a Lang and Lit junkie, I find this entire progression to be fascinating. Skip may box one of my ears for this, but having watched English go through its growing pains over the last thousand years and twist itself through form after form, I really don't think we can lay claim to any hard and fast rules to language. We've barely had standardized spelling in American English longer than we've had America, itself. We have centuries of narrative which look to our current eyes like gibberish... until you read it aloud. And there, in the nooks and crannies of history, we can finally see that it's all the same language. The only real change has been in the context.

In my defense, by spamming, I mean I used to use the tilde (~) at the end of a sentence to denote sarcasm/sass/teasing/flirting/sing song tones quite an obnoxious amount, especially in my teen years. I still use it some, at this point, you could call it a signature of my writing, but significantly less than when I first started writing. Same thing with using ellipsis for short pauses, I'm...a bit of a bad habit with that, I try to nix them when they don't feel needed but even then I feel like I use them more than the average writer haha. Maybe my characters just trail off in the middle of their thoughts more often than most...

 

[skip.knox]

I've never seen a tilde used in that way. Had I seen it, I would probably assume it was a missed keystroke. An ellipsis for a pause is also not right, and not needed. Here as elsewhere, I take the urge to use (or misuse) as a challenge. What am I trying to do here? I'm trying to indicate a hesitation of some sort; maybe to indicate uncertainty, maybe a pause for thought, maybe a loss of focus. It would not be too difficult rework that in dialog. "I have," he said slowly, "a bit of a bad habit with that." Gets the same effect without the misleading ellipsis (ellipses indicate some word or phrase left out). But it can also indicate a trailing off of thought, thought that's more appropriate at the end of a sentence. "I have a bit of a bad habit with ...," he said. They both knew what he meant.

 

[skip.knox]

>I really don't think we can lay claim to any hard and fast rules to language
No boxing of ears on this. It's too easy to correct. All you have to do is remove the phrase "any hard and fast", and you have nonsense; to wit, "I really don't think we can lay claim to rules to language."

Of course we can. There are lots of rules. A plethora of rules, jefe. We make a mistake only when we try to claim any particular rule is inviolable.

But the old guideline applies. Learn the rules before you break them. How many rules? Well, as many as you can, but there are a bloody lot of them and the more rules you learn, the more obscure they get. For most writers, there's a line of diminishing returns. Look at it this way, the more rules you learn, the more you get to break! Because if you don't know the rule, you aren't actually breaking a rule; you're just making a mistake.

 

[xena]

It’s fine in small doses, but overusing mixed punctuation can goes wrong.