William Maxwell? Annabel Davis-Goff? Elmore Leonard? Helen Dudar? Benjamin Dreyer? William Safire? F. Scott Fitzgerald? Sheilah Graham? Christopher Morley? Terry Hersom? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: The stylistically appropriate use of exclamation points is a contentious topic. One writer proposed the following comically extreme self-contradictory rule:
Kill all exclamation points!!!
Style guides have presented the following instructions:
(1) A writer gets two exclamation points in a lifetime.
(2) Every writer has a lifetime ration of three exclamation points.
(3) Use no more than a dozen exclamation points per book.
Rules of this type have been attributed to magazine editor William Maxwell, crime writer Elmore Leonard, copy editor Benjamin Dreyer, speechwriter William Safire, and others. Would you please explore this topic?
Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest match with a numerical restriction on exclamation points found by QI appeared in “The Sioux City Journal” of Iowa in October 1979. Sports journalist Terry Hersom wrote the following. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
After all, writers are entrusted with three exclamation points to last a lifetime, so as not to squander them. When one has wasted the ultimate symbol, he leaves nothing for the future.
The notion of controlling the use of exclamation points can be expressed in many ways; hence, it is difficult to trace. Here is an evolutionary overview with dates and attributions:
1919: It should be written with great rapidity, containing not less than ten exclamation points per page (Satirical remark by Christopher Morley)
1930: The Times’ typographical rules for news-stories forbade the use of the exclamation point (Claim about “The New York Times” made in “The New Yorker”)
1958: Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke (Attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald by Sheilah Graham)
1979 Jan: The quote … always appears with more exclamation points than a prudent writer is likely to use in a lifetime (Helen Dudar)
1979 Oct: Writers are entrusted with three exclamation points to last a lifetime (Terry Hersom)
1979 Nov: Don’t overuse exclamation marks!!! (William Safire)
1990: Unless you are quoting other people’s exclamations, kill all exclamation points!!! (William Safire)
1997: A writer gets two exclamation points in a lifetime (Attributed to William Maxwell by Jane Schwartz)
1999: A writer gets two exclamation points in a lifetime (Attributed to William Maxwell by Edward Hirsch)
2001: Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose (Elmore Leonard)
2004: Every writer has a lifetime ration of three exclamation points (Annabel Davis-Goff states that William Maxwell made this statement directly to her)
2008: Each of us is allowed only three exclamation points in a lifetime (Attributed to Allen Smith by colleagues Candy Schwartz and Peter Hernon)
2019: Some writers recommend that you should use no more than a dozen exclamation points per book; others insist that you should use no more than a dozen exclamation points in a lifetime (Benjamin Dreyer)
Below are details for selected citations in chronological order.
In 1919 essayist Christopher Morley published a collection of essays titled “Mince Pie: Adventures on the Sunny Side of Grub Street”. One piece commented satirically on an overwrought style:2
A letter should, if possible, be written on rose or lemon colored paper of a rough and flannely texture, with scalloped edges and initials embossed in gilt. It should be written with great rapidity, containing not less than ten exclamation points per page and three underlined adjectives per paragraph.
In 1930 “The New Yorker” asserted that “The New York Times” restricted the use of exclamation points within news articles:3
The Times’ typographical rules for news-stories forbade the use of the exclamation point which would have graced the sentence had it appeared on the editorial page …
In 1958 journalist Sheilah Graham published the memoir “Beloved Infidel”. Graham stated that F. Scott Fitzgerald offered her writing advice:4
“You don’t mind if I reword it here and there?” he asked. And though tired from his own writing at the studio, he sat down with a stubby pencil and a pack of cigarettes and painstakingly—and completely—rewrote my copy. He worked with the utmost concentration and as he worked he twisted the hair above his forehead so that a tuft stood up, as on a kewpie doll. It gave him a strangely boyish appearance. “Cut out all these exclamation points,” he said. “An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.”
A separate QI article about the quotation above is available here.
In January 1976 “Esquire,” printed an article by journalist Helen Dudar about movie critics. Dudar discussed the effusive quotations from critics which were reprinted in advertisements:5
Sometimes, an unhappy press agent will be set to work at midweek telephoning reviewers to ask, Did you like the movie? Could we have an advance copy of your review? Most critics say no. Most of them claim to hate turning up in ads. If it doesn’t make the critic seem like an auxiliary to the industry, it certainly shortens the distance between the two points. Moreover, even when the quote is reasonably accurate, it always appears with more exclamation points than a prudent writer is likely to use in a lifetime. “Hugely appealing!” Vincent Canby, N.Y. Times. “A smash!” Vincent Canby, N.Y. Times.
In October 1979 sports journalist Terry Hersom suggested a limit of three exclamation points as mentioned at the beginning of this article:6
After all, writers are entrusted with three exclamation points to last a lifetime, so as not to squander them. When one has wasted the ultimate symbol, he leaves nothing for the future.
In 1979 William Safire published an article in “The New York Times” about “fumblerules” which were comical grammar guidelines which displayed internal rule violations. Here are three examples:7
Don’t use no double negatives.
Verbs has to agree with their subjects
Don’t overuse exclamation marks!!!
In 1990 Safire published the book “Fumblerules: A Lighthearted Guide to Grammar and Good Usage” which included the following:8
Unless you are quoting other people’s exclamations, kill all exclamation points!!!
The exclamation mark is in disrepute. Ever since F. Scott Fitzgerald advised, “Cut out all those exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke,” writers have accepted the notion that the punchy little mark is un-cool.
In 1997 Jane Schwartz published “Kaplan Grammar Power”, and she attributed a version of the saying to William Maxwell:9
If you use the exclamation mark too often, its effect is weakened. Also, you look silly. William Maxwell, a fiction writer and editor at The New Yorker magazine, has said (only half-jokingly?) that “a writer gets two exclamation points in a lifetime.” A slight exaggeration, perhaps, but you get the idea.
In 1999 Edward Hirsch published “How to Read a Poem” which contained the following statement echoing Schwartz:10
William Maxwell once said that a writer gets two exclamation points in a lifetime, and Bishop has brilliantly used her quota here.
Also, in 1999 Jon Winokur published the compilation “Advice to Writers: A Compendium of Quotes, Anecdotes, and Writerly Wisdom”. The book contained an entry for William Safire’s “Fumblerules” which included these three items:11
Writing carefully, dangling participles should not be used.
Kill all exclamation points!!!
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
In 2001 “The New York Times” published an article with writing advice from Elmore Leonard titled “Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle”. Leonard suggested the following:12
Keep your exclamation points under control.
You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.
William Maxwell died in 2000 and, in 2004 “A William Maxwell Portrait: Memories and Appreciations” appeared. Annabel Davis-Goff wrote a chapter discussing her friendship with Maxwell. Davis-Goff heard the saying directly from Maxwell:13
He told me that he wrote with the assumption that if a subject interested him there would be enough readers who would also be interested. He once answered a question of mine with “fancy has a logic of its own.” (He also told me that every writer has a lifetime ration of three exclamation points.) It would be hard to overestimate how much difference these observations, and a few others that I selfishly hoard, have made.
In 2008 “The Journal of Academic Librarianship” published a piece commemorating the life of Allen Smith who was a professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College. Two of Smith’s colleagues wrote the following:14
He encouraged sober and thoughtful writing, to which point he would always tell his classes that each of us is allowed only three exclamation points in a lifetime (six for those born after 1960), and many of us were already in deficit.
In 2011 “The Writer” magazine published an article by Brandi Reissenweber containing the following:15
While you might not need to limit yourself to the ration of three exclamation marks in a lifetime that editor and writer William Maxwell advised, you should use them sparingly and with good reason.
In 2019 Benjamin Dreyer published “Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style” which included the following advice:16
61. Go light on the exclamation points. When overused, they’re bossy, hectoring, and, ultimately, wearying. Some writers recommend that you should use no more than a dozen exclamation points per book; others insist that you should use no more than a dozen exclamation points in a lifetime.
62. That said, it would be irresponsible not to properly convey with an exclamation mark the excitement of such as “Your hair is on fire!” The person with the burning head might otherwise not believe you.
In conclusion, F. Scott Fitzgerald advocated the following: “Cut out all these exclamation points” according to Sheilah Graham in 1958. Helen Dudar indicated that there was a limit to the total number of exclamation points a “prudent writer is likely to use in a lifetime” although Dudar did not specify the precise number.
Terry Hersom specified a limit of “three exclamation points to last a lifetime”. William Maxwell told Annabel Davis-Goff “every writer has a lifetime ration of three exclamation points.”
Image Notes: Three exclamation points and a question mark from D koi at Unsplash. Four images have been combined and recomposed.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Duchess Goldblatt, Chris Liebig, Elizabeth McCracken, and Linda Leinen, whose twitter discussion thread from March 4th, 2014 led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration.
- 1979 October 1, The Sioux City Journal, For the record by Terry Hersom (Sports Editor), Quote Page 9, Column 1, Sioux City, Iowa. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1919 Copyright, Mince Pie: Adventures on the Sunny Side of Grub Street by Christopher Morley, Syntax for Cynics, A Grammar of the Feminine Language, Quote Page 208, George H. Doran Company, New York. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1930 February 8, The New Yorker, The Wayward Press: Agenda Start Page 41, Quote Page 41, Column 3, F-R Publishing Corporation, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1958, Beloved Infidel: The Education of a Woman by Sheilah Graham and Gerold Frank, (First Edition), Chapter 18, Quote Page 197 and 198, Henry Holt and Company, New York. (Verified with hardcopy) ↩︎
- 1976 January, Esquire, Volume 85, Number 1, Pauline Kael Doesn’t Speak to John Simon … Rex Reed Doesn’t Speak to Anyone: You think it’s easy being a movie critic? by Helen Dudar, Start Page 74, Quote Page 79, Column 1 and 2, Esquire Inc., Chicago, Illinois. (Esquire Archive at classic.esquire.com) ↩︎
- 1979 October 1, The Sioux City Journal, For the record by Terry Hersom (Sports Editor), Quote Page 9, Column 1, Sioux City, Iowa. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1979 November 4, New York Times, On Language: The Fumblerules of Grammar by William Safire, Quote Page 16, Column 2, New York. (ProQuest) ↩︎
- 1990, Fumblerules: A Lighthearted Guide to Grammar and Good Usage by William Safire, Quote Page 76 and 77, Doubleday, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1997, Kaplan Grammar Power by Jane Schwartz, Quote Page 88, Kaplan Educational Centers and Simon & Schuster, New York. (Quotation text has been verified with scans of the second edition published in 2001; also, target text is visible in snippets within 1997 edition in Google Books; also, snippet shows copyright data of 1997 for first edition) ↩︎
- 1999, How to Read a Poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry by Edward Hirsch, Chapter 2: A Made Thing, Quote Page 36, A DoubleTakeBook: Published by the Center for Documentary Studies in association with Harcourt Brace and Company, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1999, Advice to Writers: A Compendium of Quotes, Anecdotes, and Writerly Wisdom, Compiled and Edited by Jon Winokur, Grammar and Usage, How to Write Good, Quote Page 81, Vintage Books, New York. (Verified on paper) ↩︎
- 2001 July 16, New York Times, Writer on Writing: Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle by Elmore Leonard, Quote Page E1, Column 5, New York. (ProQuest) ↩︎
- 2004 Copyright, A William Maxwell Portrait: Memories and Appreciations, Edited by Charles Baxter, Michael Collier, and Edward Hirsch, Chapter: Reading War and Peace to William Maxwell by Annabel Davis-Goff, Quote Page 181, W. W. Norton & Company, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2008 November, The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 34, Number 6, In Memory: Allen Smith by Candy Schwartz and Peter Hernon (colleagues at Simmons College), Start Page 467, Quote Page 468, Column 2, Elsevier, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2011 June, The Writer, Ask the Writer: Why does the exclamation mark have a bad reputation? by Brandi Reissenweber, Start Page 8, Quote Page 9, Kalmbach Publishing Company, Waukesha, Wisconsin. (ProQuest) ↩︎
- 2019 Copyright, Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer, Quote Page 65, Random House, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎