Overuse of exclamation points!! or Susie on steroids!!!

At some point since I began writing this blog, I became a little concerned with my apparent enthusiasm for the exclamation point.  It seemed that some sentences didn't really sing with just a period at the end.  They looked better and felt truer if they were finished off with the excited mark, as we call it in first grade.

After I noticed the problem I tried to put an end to the intensity.  I asked for advice.  I asked my husband if the exclamation points bothered him.  And I wanted to know whether the blog sounded like me.  He thought for a little bit and admitted he had noticed the high amount of exclamation points and he thought that I could tone them down, but that the blog did sound like me, just me on steroids.

Then last night we were talking about the blog and the quantity of exclamation points at dinner.  My cousin pointed out that perhaps I was the Huell Howser of blogs.  It's a joke that only people who have watched public television in California would understand, but suffice it to say that Huell had a show about interesting places in California and he loved every, single thing that he ever saw . . .

My stepdad did the Victor Borge sound effect for the exclamation point.  I knew that I had heard it, but couldn't remember where.  If you've never seen this amazing comedian do this bit, it's worth taking a look at.  Here is a clip of Victor Borge teaching Dean Martin all of his punctuation sound effects, and then singing songs, sound effects included.  

In conclusion, I would like to pledge that I will try to judiciously limit the use of exclamation points from now on.  Additionally, you may have noted that in this entire post on my proliferation of passionate punctuation, I only used those darn exclamation points in the title.