Exclamation mark
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apostrophe ( ' ); ( ’ ) |
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ampersand ( & ) |
An exclamation mark (also exclamation point, and (rarely) mark of admiration) is a punctuation mark or, more pedantically, a tone mark. Like the full stop (or period), it marks the end of a sentence. A sentence ending in an exclamation mark is either an actual exclamation, "Wow!", a command, "Stop!", or is intended to be astonishing in some way, "They were the footprints of a gigantic hound!"
In typesetting or printing (and therefore when spelling text out orally), the exclamation mark is called a screamer or bang.
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Origins
The symbol is believed to originate from the Latin word io, an exclamation of joy. It was formed either as a digraph of the letters i and o, or as the letter i (for io) above a full stop.
Natural languages
Frequent use of the exclamation mark is common in writing by teenagers and in advertising. Some brands cleverly, but confusingly, contain an exclamation mark, e.g. "Yahoo!". Some comic books, especially superhero comics of the mid-20th century, routinely use the exclamation mark instead of the period. Overuse of the exclamation mark is generally considered poor writing, since it distracts the reader, and lessens its effects.
The town of Westward Ho! in England – after which the novel by Charles Kingsley is named – is the only place name in Britain that officially contains an exclamation mark. There is also a town in Quebec called Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, which officially contains two exclamation marks in its name. The titles of several musical comedies such as Oklahoma! and Oh! Calcutta! also contain exclamation marks.
The exclamation mark ! is also used in Chinese, Korean and Japanese.
In some languages, most notably Spanish, a sentence ending in an exclamation mark must also begin with an inverted exclamation mark (the same applies to the question mark, too):
- ¿Estás loco? ¡La mataste!
In Khoi and San and IPA the exclamation point is used as a letter to indicate the retroflex click sound represented as q in Zulu orthography. In Unicode this letter is properly coded as U+01C3 (ǃ) and distinguished from the common punctuation symbol U+0021 (!) to allow software to deal properly with word breaks.
There is a punctuation mark intended to combine the functions of a question mark and an exclamation point in English language called interrobang, which resembles those marks superimposed over one another ("‽") but the sequence of "?!" is used more often.
Warnings
Exclamation marks are used to emphasize a warning.
On warning signs an exclamation mark is often used to draw attention to a warning of danger, hazards and the unexpected. These signs are common in hazardous environments or on potentially dangerous equipment. A common type of this warning is a yellow triangle with a black exclamation mark, but a white triangle with a red border is common on road warning signs.
Fan fiction
In fan fiction, "!" is used to signify a defining quality in a character, as in romantic!Draco from Harry Potter fandom. Almost always the character in question is a canon character, and most often the quality is one that is unusual, or non-canon. Occassionally, the "!" notation will describe a physical appearance thought to trigger certain reactions, as in shirtless!Vaughn from Alias. Origin unknown.
Mathematics
In mathematics the symbol represents the factorial operation. "<math>n!<math>" means "the product of the integers from 1 to <math>n<math>". For example, <math>4!<math> (read four factorial) is 4 × 3 × 2 × 1 = 24. To avoid problems in some sums involving factorials, <math> 0!<math> is defined as 1, which is a neutral element in multiplication, not multiplied by anything.
Computers
In computer programming, the exclamation mark corresponds to Unicode and ASCII character 33, or 0x0021.
Several computer languages use "!" for a variety of special meanings, most importantly, logical negation, e.g. A != B means "A is not equal to B." In this context, the exclamation is named the bang character, other programmers call it a shriek. Invented in the US it is claimed that the first term is from Unix and the second from Stanford or MIT. In the BBC Basic programming language it is called a pling and is used to reference a 32-bit word.
See also: shebang
In the Geek Code, "!" is used before a letter to denote that the geek refuses to participate in the topic at hand.
When computer programs display messages that alert the user, an exclamation mark may be shown alongside it to indicate that the message is important and should be read. This often happens when an error is made, or the when computer may do an unsafe operation, such as deleting a file.
Chess
In chess notation "!" denotes a good move and "!!" an excellent move. da:Udråbstegn de:Ausrufezeichen et:Hüüumärk ja:! nl:Uitroepteken pl:Wykrzyknik
