The Grammatical Mascot of a Sentimental Age!

Today the exclamation point is used with unprecedented, hyperventilating frequency in correspondence, deployed to soften underlying hostilities or to gin up excitement where no true reason for it suggests itself.

As a default punctuation setting, occupying the place in email and texting where the staid, neutral period once stood, the exclamation point is the grammatical mascot of an age that values the public projection of sunny emotions and feeling.

–Pamela Haag, "Death by Treacle," in American Scholar