The Elevation Mark: A Punctuation Manifesto•

A wholly novel piece of punctuation has not been introduced into the English language since 1384 when scribe Cornelius Willoughby unveiled his “mark of admiration,” or what would come to be known as the exclamation point. It quickly caused a schism throughout medieval Europe, dividing the slim but powerful cohort of literate peoples into two factions; enthusiasts, who began to decorate nearly every sentence they wrote with the new grammatical fashion of the day, and the detractors, who argued that excessive use of the exclamation point had defeated its own purpose by erasing the distinction between dispassionate statements and exuberant proclamations.

Many lives were lost in the subsequent conflicts. 

I just made that stuff up. The mark probably came from the ancient Latin word io, meaning “joy.” Those two letters would often be tacked onto the end of a sentence meant to convey a strong positive emotion. It is hypothesized that the ‘i’ eventually migrated above the ‘o’, which itself gradually shrank from a circle to a dot, and voila! The exclamation point.

The more likely historical account just didn’t sound as interesting as the idea of battles being fought over a hot new punctuation mark. The point, either way, is that we have been using the same few markings for a long, long time. 

Let us envision the question mark, the exclamation point, and the period as the primary colors of punctuation. These three symbols comprise the palette with which we paint our writing. Sure, we use all sorts of descriptive words to communicate our complicated thoughts, but when it comes to the markings that instruct our eyes and minds in the interpretation, emphasis, and contextualization of those words, it has always been just red, yellow, and blue.

I would like to make the case for a new punctuation, a fourth figure to splash across your canvas. A complementary color that exists halfway between the blue period and the yellow exclamation. A lively green, here to serve a much needed punctuational purpose.

The Elevation Mark•

     F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, “Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.”

     Or, for a more recent reference, see this exchange between Elaine and her boyfriend, Jake Jarmel on an episode of Seinfeld:

     Elaine: If one of your close friends had a baby, and I left you a message about it, I would use an exclamation point.

Jake: Well, maybe I don’t use my exclamation points as haphazardly as you do.

Perhaps it has been a perineal problem, as Fitzgerald would have us believe, but it seems as though the digital age has exacerbated the saturation of the exclamation. The symbol has been typed and drawn, clicked and thumbed, so incessantly that it has become the punctuation who cried wolf. And just like a drug, when tolerance develops and the effect weakens, we use more. As a disturbing result, the period, that sturdy, reliable, and historically flexible method of terminating a thought, has begun to look cold. Impersonal. Even downright dour. Do I want to end an emotionally sophisticated statement with a period and come off like an uncaring asshole, or shower the recipient with exclamation points and seem a histrionic buffoon? And who among us has not, in the throes of a hopeless frustration, opted for no mark at all, not unlike a dunce writing in the dirt with a stick? These are the unsatisfactory choices that we have all come to struggle with in this late stage of our dialectical disease. 

As I found myself increasingly desperate to represent the proper degree of nuance, especially in the realm of social media composition, I began to explore the landscape in search of alternatives that could fit the bill. I considered various glyphs including the asterisk, the hyphen, and the tilde (which is this thing ~) It was not long before I discovered, hidden two digital keyboards away from our standard fare, my Holy Grail of punctuation. The shiny puddle of luscious green that had been forever missing from my limited linguistic palette. 

Known historically as a “midpoint”—and, since the word processor and PC boom of the late 1980s, as the modern “bullet point”—it seemed to have all the characteristics necessary to meet my needs. It is a comfortably recognizable mark, but has tended exclusively to make its appearance in front of a word or line, specifically an item in a list. The familiarity makes it’s sudden appearance at the end of a comment feel simultaneously obvious and yet unique. Unlike a plus sign or an asterisk, its symbolic meaning is not already inextricably linked with other functions, which would distract from its newly-intended, repurposed effect. 

And so it is that I come to recommend, for syntactical canonization, the Elevation Mark. Functioning as a kind of Period 1.5 (or Exclamation 0.5, if you prefer), the Elevation Mark resides in that middle range between declaratory and ecstatic. Perfunctory and alarmed. Noncommittal and smitten. It is the tried and true full stop period, but elevated (figuratively and literally), indicating that the statement itself should be considered as elevated. Not a rocket firing toward the heavens, but a raised eyebrow, a step to the next octave, a departure from the ordinary.

And the physical appearance of the mark, hanging there at the midpoint, perfectly conveys its inherent purpose and meaning. There is little room for confusion when we see our familiar period dot, hoisted halfway up into the vertical space designated for sentence construction, like a tiny grammatical slider knob, raising the volume to a respectable 5. 

     Please sample a taste of the following typographical hors d'oeuvres:

     Thanks.     (Psychopathically emotionless)

     Thanks!     (Golden retriever-level excitement, bordering on sarcasm)

     Thanks•     (I rest my case)

My argument made, I now encourage you to take the Elevation Mark for a test drive. The next time that you caption a photo or respond to a compliment, and the internal conflict swells within, your mind vacillating between the tired period and the overused exclamation, consider the option of elevation. Together we can begin painting our written thoughts with a range of color at once more subtle and more vivid than ever before, and perhaps even make a lasting contribution to the field of stigmeology. 

     For your time and your willing attention, I thank you•