Everyday I Write the Book, Elvis Costello: “All your compliments and cutting remarks are captured here in my quotation marks.”

City of Motors, Soul Coughing: “Flicks an ash like a wild, loose comma.”

Oxford Comma, Vampire Weekend: “Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma?”

I Hear the Bells, Mike Doughty: “Glints in the nights commas and ampersands.”

I Love You Period, Dan Baird: “Please, please exclamation point. I want to hold you in parentheses.”

And another one from Paxton Holley in the comments:

Run-DMC, King of Rock: “We’re causing Hard Times, for Sucka MCs, cause they don’t make no songs like these. PERIOD.”

The post I Give a Fuck About the Oxford Comma: A Playlist in Honor of National Punctuation Day appeared first on I Will Dare.

First, let me say that I am not morally opposed to the exclamation point (is it a point or a mark?). When you use them on occasion they actually do convey extreme emotion, which is what they’re supposed to do. But when you sprinkle your emails and posts and status updates and tweets with them, they cease to have any meaning.

But what’s more troubling is that exclamation abuse has become so rampant that I can’t even tell anymore how I’m supposed to react when people use so many of them. I have a hard time deciphering the difference between. “Holy shit last night was so fun!!” and “Holy shit last night was so fun!!!!!!”

Is the sentence with !!!!!! mean the night was three times more fun than the night with only two? Is there some kind of Exclamation to English conversion chart for those of us who have difficulty with the translation?

Something like:

! = I should have used a period but I have forgotten how to properly punctuate.
!! = What I am talking about in this sentence is better than a kick in the face.
!!! = Emotional equivalent to the feeling one gets on Fridays.
!!!! = Building a hotel on Boardwalk
!!!!! = When you read this sentence I am trying to convey the emotion you get when you have a nice cold gin & tonic on a hot, hot summer day.
!!!!!! = Winning the lottery.
!!!!!!! = Orgasms.
!!!!!!!!1!!!!!111!!!!! = Orgasms with Matt Dillon.

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As is the general rule in Ruby I was singing along as loud as I could. I am an unapologetic car-singer and I figure if someone doesn’t like it, well they don’t need to ride in Ruby.

So there I was headed home singing, “Come on angel my heart’s on fire, don’t deny you’re mans’ desire. . .” and then I stopped dead in the middle of my solo. “Hrm,” I thought. “I wonder how that lyric is punctuated, because that really would change the meaning of the line.”

Think about it, “Don’t deny your man’s desire,” is a little bit of a scuzzy pressure play.

“Don’t deny you’re mans’ desire,” is like telling her she’s just so beautiful that all of man desires her and boy is he lucky he gets to have sex with here in as soon as this song is over.

I’ve decided it’s the second one, or at least that’s what I think when I’m singing it.

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