Do I always need a capital letter after an exclamation mark or a question mark? I’m bilingual with french, and, especially in older works, I’ve often stumbled upon exclamation marks or question marks that don’t end a sentence, but merely serve to accentuate a specific part of a sentence. Sometimes they replace a comma, sometimes … Read more
Granted this applies to more than English, but I hope it’s not off topic. Recently I wondered when the exclamation point/mark entered our language and how. I did search the site for an answer and didn’t find one. With Googling, I accumulated a lot of interesting tidbits (below), but no good answer. The most repeated … Read more
I am writing a novel. I have doubts how should I use question marks and exclamation marks in conjunction with quotation marks. I have written 5 separate sentences to illustrate this issue: He asked, “Why should I do this?” “Where are we going?” “Let’s get out of here!” He yelled, “I want you to do … Read more
When ending a sentence with a ? and a !, is there a rule which one comes first? That is, ?! or !?? If either is okay, are they interchangeable, or for difference circumstances? Answer The term for that is “interrobang.” Wikipedia states, The interrobang, also known as the interabang, (pron.: /ɪnˈtɛrəbæŋ/), ‽ (often represented … Read more
Is there any difference between “?!” and “!?”? The Wikipedia page on Interrobang describes: In informal English, the same inflection is usually notated by ending a sentence with first a question mark and then an exclamation mark, or vice versa. Many people are unfamiliar with the interrobang, and would be puzzled when first seeing it, … Read more
Why is the exclamation mark called a bang? Bang is used to mean the sound of something falling but these days I hear it frequently used to mean the exclamation mark, especially in IT related texts. Answer Punctuation apparently got short names and nicknames in the printing industry when humans set the type, literally by … Read more
If a question is asked in surprise, informally many people use “?!” as their ending punctuation, as in the following: What did you do to my sausages?! According to the accepted answer in this question, this is considered incorrect by experts. In that case, which punctuation ought to be omitted and which used? What did … Read more
Where should I use the following symbols while writing something in English language? ! — exclamation mark ; — semicolon ` — grave accent Answer 1) Use ! at the end of an exclamation such as, “The house is on fire!” 2) Semicolon is the hard one. You can use it to separate independent clauses, … Read more
What is the proper way of writing an exclamative question: What are you doing!? What are you doing?! or is it better to just leave it as a simple question? Answer According to the Interrobang wikipedia page, this symbol [‽] has been created to convey the meaning of your question. Using it you ask “a … Read more
If someone (for example, John) retweets my tweet, should I add the exclamation mark in my reply? Which of the following options is correct: Thank you for the RT, John! Thank you for the RT, John. I have noticed that the exclamation mark is not always used by native English speakers. Answer The answer is … Read more
