#the bloody sputum of grammatical errors

[hoidn]

people. people. for the love of all that's good in the world, please learn how to use the interrobang correctly. please. i know you can't work commas or apostrophes or, god forbid, semicolons, but the interrobang is within your grasp! it's a star you can reach if you just put a tiny amount of thought into it. i promise!

you use an interrobang to add emphasis to your question. "what?" becomes "what?!" as in, "i am exclaiming this question because i am so startled or amazed or horrified or feeling some other strong emotion!"

writing "what!?" adds confusion to your exclamation and to your reader. "i'm excited! maybe?" is that really what you want your character to say? because the number of times a day i encounter a mangled interrobang indicates a truly worrisome epidemic of people who apparently have no real grasp on their own emotions.

"how dare you!?" you yell in outrage. except... it might not be outrage? you've come to the end of the sentence and now you're not sure. once, you were, you think, back at the beginning, but not anymore. the question mark hangs at the end of all your sentences, undermining every exclamation you make. the uncertainty is becoming unbearable but there's no way back. you're trapped here in this hell of doubt. what's real? what's true? is anything? how will you ever know?!

this, friends, is what you do to your reader every time you mutilate an interrobang.

so, to sum up:

?! = yes. good. !? = no. bad. why would you do that?

seriously, i am asking for so little here. my standards have fallen so low. the correct placement of two elements. just two. that's all. two. two.

[hoidn]

i just find it so difficult to resist correcting the grammar of posts i reblog.