E-mail evolution

I hate exclamation points. \nIf one grammatical matter can give away someone’s lack of writing abilities and inept vocabulary faster than anything else, it’s the use of several exclamation points in a row.\nI thought anyone who knew anything about writing agreed with me here, but on Thursday, Slate Magazine ran an article arguing that not only are exclamation points a good thing, but that we should use more of them.\nIt was not, however, actually talking about “writing.” Rather, it was talking about the speaking-writing hybrid we’ve come to know as Internet talk. \nThe Slate article claimed that we use exclamation points in Internet chatter out of a subconscious admission that what we are typing is not really worthy of being written at all. Our writing evolved from a system in which time and writing materials were scarce, the article argues, so every word had to count. \nFourteenth-century monks never would have written to their friends that they would “totally, like, meet them in 15 minutes,” and such traditions of writing have been passed down to us. That’s why you probably have friends who get peeved if you type “lol” or omit the first two letters of “you.” \nSlate, and many people I know, seem to think we are demeaning writing by letting it take on this shallow purpose of saying things that don’t “deserve” to be said. However, I’m inclined to disagree, because I wouldn’t call Internet chatter “writing,” per se. \nIf language were movies, verbal speech would be analogous to live action, and writing would correlate to animation. Neither could completely represent real life, but the first comes more naturally and can more naturally inflect lifelike situations. The latter is more composed of a set of symbols of which the meaning and use must be consciously learned. \nInternet speech is more like claymation. It’s a hybrid we created to strike a balance for a task that neither of our previously set systems could totally cover. \nSpeaking seemed inadequate because it was too lifelike to be written; writing seemed inadequate because it was too formal for the quick conversation created through typing and the instant sending and receiving of messages. \nEventually Internet speech became its own form of language expression, equally as valid in its semantics as the others. Internet chatterers actually use a surprisingly complex thought process for determining when to use “lol” versus “hahahaha” in an AIM conversation or deciding whether to follow up a statement with two exclamation points or three when a friend e-mails you to ask how much fun you had at an event. \nThis fine distinction doesn’t present itself in your term paper. Regardless of whether you say “Nero played the violin while Rome burned!!” or “Nero played the violin while Rome burned!!!” you look like you don’t know the rules of writing. \nEven though I, as a writer, still cringe at the sight of exclamation points, I think it’s good that they’re finding use in Internet speech. It’s always exciting to see the possibilities of language evolve.