February 7, 2013

Idea: The Exclamation Point Limiter!

[This post is part of an idea dump.]

Do you know someone who uses excessive exclamation points in their emails, Facebook updates, and tweets? Perhaps it’s time you have a talk with him or her, and suggest they install the Exclamation Point Limiter. It’s a piece of software that runs in the background of their computer and trains them to use exclamation points in a way that doesn’t call to mind F. Scott Fitzgerald’s quote: “An exclamation point is like laughing at your own jokes.”

How does it work? At first, it’s generous. The person using the software gets 15 exclamation points they can use each week. Eventually over time, it winds down to three a week. Each Monday, the counter resets and they get three exclamation points to use however they want. They can all be wasted at the end of one sentence!!! Or they can be used sparingly, and only when truly needed.

Comments

Glue a thumb tack just above their 1 key!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IT’S A GOOD IDEA, BUT WOULD JUST RESULT IN PEOPLE USING CAPS TOO MUCH, INSTEAD!!!

Perhaps you would also have to limit how many upper case letters they are allowed to use per week.

IT’S A GOOD IDEA, BUT WOULD JUST RESULT IN PEOPLE USING CAPS TOO MUCH, INSTEAD!!!

Perhaps you would also have to limit how many upper case letters they are allowed to use per week.

Consecutive uppercase letters. Though I suppose all-lowercase is becoming increasingly accpetable.

It might encourage exclamoticoms —·