You may have noticed.
You may even be planning an intervention.
When I look back through my blog, emails, correspondence and even my thoughts, I take note that I am obsessed with the “dot, dot, dot”.
They are so cute, round and multiple. They are a perfect circle design element repeated three times. They are so dramatic in their effect. They are thought inducing, subtracting and multiplying. They are compact and can be taken almost anywhere. Oh, how I love the …. (the fourth one there is the actual period at the end of that sentence which I probably should have replaced with an exclamation point…((see how great that pause is there?)))
Which brings me to admit that this isn’t the first time I have been in love with punctuation…(stop me, now)…
My first crush was with the exclamation point!
I am perky by nature so the exclamation point and I really hit it off. Oh, how I could just bring any sentence more umph, visibility, and sass by just adding one of those!
It was easy! It was effortless! It was a trap…
…because too much of a good thing depletes its value. I was over-exclaiming!
Suddenly all those really important points were lost with all the other really important points.
I just had to start saying “no” to the exclamation point. I couldn’t go cold turkey. I couldn’t avoid my first love completely. I have had to go on punctuation limitation.
I have self-imposed a one exclamation point rule. Only one per event. Only one saved for the most important point thoughtfully and lovingly placed.
Oh, I have flirted with the ALL CAPS and the bold. I have even been known to use the –, or in extreme cases the italics. But for now, it will be the dot, dot, dot until…
I get help.
PS: A special thanks to JCK, Meg, Madge, Burgh Baby, Rachael and Amy who may have suffered through that post twice. It originally appeared 12-7-07.
Punctuation Limitation LMAO – you. are. a. riot. So glad I stopped by, and I’ve noticed you stopped by my place too. Works out real well. *huggies*
I am laughing so hard. I use the dot dot dot all of the time, in all my written communications.
Hilarious. And, even better is that you can inspire so much conversation on punctuation! That’s awesome. I’m addicted to starting a sentence with and, which I know is all kinds of wrong.
I hear you girl…I have the same problem…Love the blog by the way.
Glad to see I’m not the only person in the world who has a … problem. I find myself using it so often that I have rewrite emails, posts, etc after I’m done (and I’m proofing it) and realize how many times I actually used it! Ack!
Yours truly in punctuation…
Nicole
So, YOU are to blame for my new …………… habit! I knew I pick it up somewhere in blogland but couldn’t …….. pinpoint it.
Now I know where to send the therapy bill.
I have something for you on my blog!
I have become addicted to the hyphen. Or the runonword. And the fragment. Or the One. Word. Sentences. There are some things you can only express with incorrect grammar.
KEEP BELIEVING
LOL My problem with punctuation is knowing when and what to use. Totally missed that class in school
I am addicted to every single form of punctuation over-use that there IS.
Caps, exclamation points, ellipses, and my biggest habit-parenthesis over-use.
It’s amazing I have any readers at all.
HRH, I know that I’m new here, but at the bottom of this comment box, there are prompts to use html tags. I think that it’s called ‘enabling’
Good luck kicking the habit. The first exclamation point is free.