Punctuation Fans Pour Their He@rts Out

!, @, ?, and others mark the spot of blog readers' affections
By Marie Morris,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 25, 2010 9:20 AM CDT
Punctuation Fans Pour Their He@rts Out
An exclamation point and question mark made of jigsaw puzzle pieces.   (?Horia Varlan)

Curious? Excited!? Thrilled to see @ move from obscurity to virtual omnipresence? Tell your favorite punctuation mark how you feel. "We’re combining two of our top-ten passions in life and challenging you to write a letter to your favorite punctuation mark," write the editors of the Emdashes blog, "or perhaps one you find elusive, insufficiently loved, or sound but overexposed."

Commenters are embracing the challenge, sharing their love for everything from the ellipsis to the asterisk to marks you may be surprised to learn have names, like the grawlix—the string of characters that represents profanity ("Anyway, #!*@&% you, grawlix," writes one conflicted fan)—and the diaeresis, which the unwashed masses know as an umlaut. You have until Aug. 15 to share the love and maybe win a book. For inspiration, check out a perspective on the plight of the semicolon here and an introduction to the recently invented SarcMark here.
(More punctuation stories.)

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