Punctuation pooh-poohs

[cjsmith]

This? Is not grammatically correct.
Neither? Is this.
It makes prose? Sound whiny and ineffective.
When I do this? Somebody please kick my butt.

Almost every time I see an ellipsis... a comma would be better.
Commas indicate natural pauses in speaking... as this seems to be trying to do.
If it's meant to add emphasis... it's not working.
When I do this... somebody please kick my butt.

Comma splices are another one, each of these should be a sentence, it drives me crazy when I have to read it, I never know if the writer has a point in mind, in fact I usually start to figure they don't, I'm probably guilty of all three of these too sometimes, maybe I should have been a grade-school English teacher, this kind of thing really jumps out at me, when I do this somebody please kick my butt.

I feel better now.

Comments

[nosrednayduj]

I will occasionally use ellipses in place of a smiley face, when the thing I've said is only marginally amusing. Or, if there's something funnier elsewhere. I try to limit myself to one smiley per message. In that case, though, the ellipses terminate the sentence.

I am also a semicolon (and colon) fiend. They put 'em on my keyboard: I'm gonna USE 'EM.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I overuse smilies in a big way. A couple of years ago, a LiveJournal friend of mine decided to cut herself off cold turkey from any kind of emoticons. She said it was a lot more difficult than she'd expected. I haven't had the guts to try the same.