Exclamation Points: The Spice of Life!

Over the past couple of weeks, Jay has worked quite diligently on a paper about an obscure inventor in US History--Richard Jordan Gatling.

It was a bit of a struggle trying to find much information on him, as she had to use book sources...not encyclopedias or internet.

As she wrote her rough draft, she squeezed out every bit of information possible to get her essay to be long enough.

Most of her friends got inventors like Eli Whitney or John Deere--who had so much information that they struggled to condense it down.

Needless to say, Jay was a bit worried that she wouldn't get a good grade on her paper because hers wouldn't be as information packed as some others.

Yesterday, she got it back and was very pleased to see she got 49 out of 50 on her rough draft. Many of the other students did not take it very seriously, and as a result did not do very well.

Jay said, "Mom! I was so excited when I saw my grade! If I hadn't used so many exclamation points I would've gotten a perfect score!"

"Huh? What about the
exclamation points?" I asked.

"Oh! I used so many exclamation points that my teacher circled them and told me I used way too many!" she answered.

I jokingly asked her, "Has your teacher ever had a conversation with you?" {Jay is a walking, talking exclamation point. Her life is an exclamation point--and it most definitely reflects in her speech}.

Then I asked her to share some examples of her exclamationally peppered essay.

One of her sentences said, "The Gatling family had been settled there since 1700!"

Jay explained, "Mom! Don't you think that is amazing that they had been settled there for such a long time? That totally needed an exclamation point!"

Another sentence read, "He was twenty-one and ready to follow in his father's footsteps!"

Jay explained, "Mom, I think it was very exciting that he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps at the age of twenty-one!"

She continued to regale me with her exclamation point usage...with MANY, MANY sentences. you can thank me later for not sharing each one...but I found it quite hilar

Trying to help her understand the teacher's point of view I said, "Jay, exclamation points are to be used when you really need to emphasize something in your sentence. These sentences in your essay don't really need them."

"But, mom!" Jay said. "My essay would be SOOOOO boring if I didn't have exclamation points! They totally spice it up!"

She makes a valid point--it was a very spicy essay.

Let it be known now and forever on the records of the Shenanigan's Household:

Spice totally trumps grammar.