[oops, accidentally sent it to Andre only. My apologies for the duplicate - damn gmail!]
On 19/09/05, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
Actually I think this one is a good advise for those writing Wikipedia
- usage of exclamation marks often means that you are slipping towards
POV. Alford's term "note of admiration" explains that well - we should not be noting that something is admirable, just tell the facts and have the reader decide whether they are admirable or down-to-earth.
Besides, using an exclamation mark in every second line, as some people tend to do, is in my opinion bad style in itself, even outside Wikipedia.
Not disagreeing with the style - this isn't the context for exclamation marks at all. However, I think the point holds - the language changes to the point that a very common piece of punctuation *doesn't even have a recognisable term* a mere hundred and forty years ago.
(Incidentally, http://www.issco.unige.ch/staff/clark/SprolacPaper.doc.pdf has quite an amusing table - frequency counts of !, !!, !!!, !!!! &c from Usenet.)