Stop worrying about exclamation marks!

I started writing this post after noticing that many of my students were overusing exclamation marks (or exclamation points) in their work emails. Much to my surprise, this fairly simple topic turned out to be quite fascinating. Our simple line and a dot is hiding some secrets.

But, before we get to that, we should first deal with the exclamation marks! In Finnish emails I find them everywhere, from Hello! to Best Regards!

You may be thinking, "That's nice. I like to add a little positivity to people’s inboxes." Well, that positivity can also make you look a bit mad, or worse, a bit rude.

Here are some reasons you should use fewer exclamation marks.

Use fewer exclamation marks because...

You're scaring me.

E.g.1:"Thanks for getting in touch!"- Is the level of excitement here really appropriate? Unless this person is rescuing you from a desert island, then probably not.

E.g.2: "I’m looking forward to the meeting on Friday! - It sounds like you’ve had about six cups of coffee. Come down off the ceiling and tone it down a notch.

Or consider the example below. Is this person happy or are they juggling so many things that they are about to have a breakdown?

Use fewer exclamation marks because...

I don't understand you.

E.g.1: "Let’s try to get this done by Friday!" - What do you mean here? Try reading this in an excited voice. Now in an angry voice. Now try in a sarcastic voice.

Exclamation marks are open to a lot of interpretation. even a simple "No!" is ambiguous. Are you happy, angry, disbelieving or so annoyed you are flipping your desk over?

If these aren't reason enough, remember the context here. We are writing emails, not dialogue for a play. Expressing emotion is not the priority.

This is supposed to be work-related communication - short and to the point. There should also be a certain formality to work emails, and exclamation marks usually look a bit casual.

And my final argument is simply that most of the time the exclamation mark doesn’t add anything. Are the following sentences worse because they don’t have one?

Looking forward to seeing the end result.

I’m excited to hear from you.

I’m happy to help out.

No, they’re great. The language does the job just fine without help from the businessman’s smiley.

My students are always looking for a golden rule. It’s not always possible because language is never simple, but here’s my best attempt. Don’t use exclamation marks except for when you’re saying Congratulations or Happy Birthday (or similar) and never use more than one exclamation mark per email – ever!

Now for the interesting bit. While researching this topic, I found couple of excellent articles that explained how the use of exclamation marks in emails is much more common by women.

I urge you to read the articles as they explain it much better than I ever could, but the general conclusion seems to be that women workers feel less secure in the workplace and more inclined to worry about how they appear.

• https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190606-the-danger-of-overusing-exclamation-marks

• https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/exclamation-point-email-work-boss

This is really sad and, on reflection, I can see that this has possibly been the case in many of the examples I’ve seen first hand. It seems there is an insecurity we are trying to hide, a pressure to manage the emotions of the recipient. We're trying to say, "I hope this doesn’t make me sound unfriendly."

So I would say, and please believe me when I tell you, what you’ve written is fine without exclamation marks. It really is.

Secondly, no one really cares. Don’t take that personally, just think about it from the other person's perspective - turn the tables for a minute. How often have you received an email that you kept thinking about for months? Probably not ever, right?

Have you thought about an email for weeks?

Days?

Just one day?

Not often, right?

We’re busy. We don’t have time to be offended by badly written emails. Most of the time we don’t even have time to read emails. No one is thinking, "They don’t use exclamation marks much, must be a bit of a grump". And frankly, anyone that is thinking that, isn’t worth worrying about.

“Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind”

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If you're interested in improving your English, get in touch. I'm happy to chat, free of charge, and discuss how I can help.