Pater Familias

Theories, observations, and articles, by Philip Schaefer · All posts · Categories

GUESS WHICH OF THESE WRITERS USE EXCLAMATION POINTS THE MOST?

February 21, 2017 at 5:37 PM · Literature

GUESS WHICH OF THESE WRITERS USE EXCLAMATION POINTS THE MOST? The Atlantic (March 2017) quotes Elmore Leonard on the subject of exclamation points: “You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.” They then test Leonard and nine other famous writers on how many exclamation points they have used per 100,000 words. Here are the ten writers in alphabetical order to give you a chance to guess. I picked as #1 the writer who came in second.

Jane Austen

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Ernest Hemingway

E L James (50 SHADES)

James Joyce

Elmore Leonard

Toni Morrison

Salman Rushdie

Tome Wolfe

Virginia Woolf