Hard stops vs. soft stops

Posted by Some guy on November 08, 2004

In Reply to: Punctuation? posted by DH on November 06, 2004

: : : But I have a very strongly parallel question. I have gone to WW on this, but they won't talk to me. Is it ok to use lower-case after punctuation, eg,

: : For better or for worse, we have no English Academy (other than the Royal Academy) to tell us what we absolutely can and cannot write. In formal writing, or expository prose you wish to have published in a respectable organ, you will almost always have to deal with a critically minded editor who will not want to see any doubled exclamation marks, and would rather not see any at all. But there's lots of writing other than formal prose. Maybe I learned my bad taste from reading the funnies, in which exclamation points and question marks could not only be doubled and tripled, but also intermixed. To convey swear words and unrepeatable ejaculations the writer often used a string of characters found as upper-case on the top row of keys on the keyboard. Do doubled exlamation points help make plain the way to speak and understand the sentence? More so than single exclamation points? If so, they are justified. But only in informal writing. The other question raised is trickier. Can punctuation (that is, presumably, exclamation points, question marks and colons) be followed by lower-case. This is one of those matters that will be decided by an editor, if by anyone. Some teachers and style manuals will offer hard and fast rules for colons. Other than that, you're on your own. If you like the look of your sentence, go for it. If not, re-write it. SS

I was taught that in formal English, exclamation points and question marks are hard stops (i.e. equivalent to the period at the end of a sentence). Ergo, you capitalize after them. And they only come at the end of a sentence. Whereas a colon is not a hard stop, it is a delimiter for a following series. Therefore, no capitalization is required after a colon (unless for other reasons, like proper names or such).

Exclamation points are useful in printed dialogue to help convey tone. They are not typically useful for emphasis within text because they belong at the end of sentences. Better ways to emphasize are available, including italics, underlining, bolding, font changes, etc. YMMV.

In informal contexts, throwing a question mark in parenthesis after something about which you're not sure, like (?), can be used to signify the question about that particular word or item without making the statement a question itself, or belaboring the point with a followup question to that effect. Informal use means do whatever best conveys the meaning and is most clear to readers.

HOWEVER POSTING IN ALL CAPS WITH NO PUNCTUATION BUT EXCLAMATIONS!!! IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!!!!!!

;-)