Terrorised by punctuation

Now, this probably isn’t going to be what you think. While I wouldn’t describe myself as an expert I’m quite comfortable with grammar and I absolutely know where to put an apostrophe, so punctuation actually holds no horror for me.

What prompted this post was a blog I read about reading with your children, how important it is to read with your children (no argument there), and how vital it is to still keep pace with your children’s reading when they get too old to be read to (as someone who has never outgrown YA fiction, no problem with that, either).

I had no issue with the points made, but the writer had underlined their passion for the subject by peppering their post with exclamation marks! Loads of them! Really, it was extraordinary how many they could fit into a paragraph! I felt as though I’d been shouted at! Repeatedly!

As a keen reader I read an awful lot but I rarely notice punctuation. And I think that’s the point. Punctuation should fade entirely into the background, guiding the reader to interpret the meaning behind the assembled words correctly, but drawing no attention to itself.

I’m curious, has anyone else had punctuation jump out in front of them like this, or am I the only one to be ambushed by an exclamation mark?