I say! The story behind screamers, and other literary curiosities...

Mike Bodnar explores some of the stuff we take for granted in literature every day...

"We all know what exclamation marks are for!" smirked Julian.

"I didn't ask you what they're for," retorted Gabby, "I asked if you know where they come from, not what they're for or where they go."

Julian shuffled on his knees to the door of the tree hut, then turned. "You're a girly swot, Gabby. I'm not playing!" And with that he exited the structure, and - forgetting the ladder had been hauled up - fell immediately to his death.

The End.

Okay, not your average Enid Blyton snippet, but, y'know, lol! It's just to grab your attention.

Because, while I was reading a novel the other day (Mick Herron's latest Slow Horses book, Clown Town, since you ask), I suddenly wondered where exclamation marks came from. 

No reflection on Mr. Herron's writing - I am easily distracted - but when he relates that one of his characters says something 'in italics' - that got me pondering the origins of italics too. There is a link between exclamation marks and italics, and it's called Italy. The clue, obviously, is in the word italics itself. Jackson Lamb and his clowns had to wait while I investigated.

So let's start with - yes let's! - exclamation marks, because I have done the legwork for you. 

"Guarda! Posso mettere più parole sulla pagina!"

Turns out we must travel back to the 13th or 14th centuries (the jury is still out), where, stepping from the Tardis, we discover that monks, toiling away on their tomes, would use a particular way of spelling 'joy' ('io') in Latin, which was to put the 'i' directly above the 'o'.

Over time, the 'o' became more of a dot, and the word eventually ceased to be a word and became the exclamation mark we all know today. Does that bring you joy?

If it does, you'll also be delighted to know that io is pronounced 'ee-oh', or even 'yo'. So when someone in your 'hood calls out, 'Yo!' you know they are really shouting joy to you. Either that or they're about to mug you.

But here I am being flippant again. Straight face, let's continue.

The man himself

For evidence, while we're in bygone Italy, we can meet Coluccio Salutati, where in one of his manuscripts we find the very first example of io written as an i above an o. 

However, he wasn't the one to popularise it; fast forward just a few decades - still in Italy - and we find printers such as Venetian Aldus Manutius standardizing the i above the dot to express and emphasise strong emotion. The rest really is history.

(As an aside, printers later called the exclamation mark the 'bang,' 'screamer,' and even the 'shriek'!)

Italics

As mentioned, the word italics provides a glaringly obvious clue to its origin, and once again it's printer Aldus Manutius who is the prime suspect. And we don't even have to get back in the Tardis.

Just a year or so after he discovered and popularised the joy of the exclamation mark, he got his assistant to craft a more cursive script for an edition of the Epistole of St. Catherine of Siena

Italics in action

. There followed rapid adoption of the slanting italic script by Manutius, but not, I must emphasise, for emphasis.

No; instead, the smaller slanting cursive script was used because it took up less space than more traditional typeface, enabling the publishing of more compact pocket books, in, for example, octavo format.

Not that cursive script was new - scholars and other scribes in the 14th century had often written in italics, but it was Manutius who began using it in print, and he in fact modestly named the type 'Aldino.' 

We don't call it Aldino today, because, very soon after Manutius claimed ownership (which, by the way, received papal approval three times, bless), competitors outside Venice also adopted it (some say counterfeited it), but called the script 'italics' as a way of giving Italy as a country ownership, rather than just one man. (I'm surprised they didn't call exclamation marks 'exclamitali' ©Mike Bodnar).

Just my type

Italics have a special place in my heart because when I was about ten or eleven years old, I was given a brand new typewriter, an Olympia 33 portable. I didn't think twice that it actually had italic type hammers, and that everything I typed was strongly emphasised. Writing a letter, I'd begin with, 'Dear Shaun,' except it would of course come out as an imperative Dear Shaun, and finish with an emphatic 'Your friend, Mike.' 

My school assignments likewise were presented in urgent typeface, though not, it has to be said, always in a timely manner.

But I learned to type on that machine, and it was my trusty workhorse for at least the next ten years.

Ellipses...

And so, at least in this article, to the final item of punctuative interest: dot, dot, dot - the ellipsis. Ellipses have, of recent times, become somewhat controversial. But first, some more time travelling. Follow me.

Terence, Andria, translated by Maurice Kyffin: 
London, 1588
(The British Library Board, C.13.a.6 sig. Iiiiir)

The use of dots to show a pause or a tailing off in speech can be seen in an early Roman play, Andria, in a 1588 English translation of previous Greek versions. Here, it seems, the translator has taken the liberty to introduce a pause or tailing off in speech using a series of dots. In this case (see pic) there are four, and they are more dashes than dots, but their purpose is the same: they demonstrate a deliberate absence of words.

Literary academic Dr. Anne Toner, in a paper on the origins and use of ellipses, has this to say...

But an absence of words usually signals a heightening of emotion or action ... The ellipsis acts therefore as a form of stage direction. As such, it has proved to be a powerful and extremely useful dramatic resource. In speaking aloud, pausing is, after all, a vital aspect of the delivery of meaning: a slight hesitation speaks volumes. As Toner says: “...not saying something often says it better."

Which makes me want to leave the rest of this article blank, just so you can marvel at the creativity that isn't actually here...

'Jack sweeps Rose up in his arms
and takes her into the bedroom...'

But you don't get rid of me that easily. I agree with Dr. Toner that something unsaid can also be something revealed. I feel, for example, that ellipses are the equivalent of the slow mix between scenes in a movie, something that suggests time passing, or a 'meanwhile moment.' 

Also in movie terms, ellipses are like the fade-to-black at the end of a scene, where no more needs to be said. For example, 'Jack sweeps Rose up in his arms and takes her into the bedroom...'

You could adopt this in a practical sense at home. For example, tomorrow evening, when it's approaching bedtime, try saying to your partner, 'D'you fancy a bit of dot dot dot?' and see what happens. Don't blame me if you get a black eye.

'Boomer ellipses'

So, to the controversy. Ellipses, when employed in a messaging or texting context, have taken on a tone of aggression in today's internet-based communication. Apparently. But - it must be stressed - this interpretation is entirely the domain of... young people. (See what I did there?)

Ooh, sarcasm!

People my age - and let's not say anything about that other than I was a teenager when Apollo 11 landed on the moon - and 'boomers' in general, have been accused by Gen Z and millennials of not understanding ellipses, or at the very least, misusing them. 

Seriously; they even call them 'Boomer ellipses,' because, duh, they're so old fashioned? (The question mark is so that in your head this sounds like a young person speaking.)

A Gen Z or millennial today will typically use ellipses in their phone messages to indicate sarcasm, displeasure, hesitation or annoyance, whereas we boomers continue to employ and interpret ellipses as they have been understood for over 500 years. In short, we have a generational divide; we employ ellipses as they were originally intended - to show a continuation, a pause, or a passage of time, while Gen Z and millennials have reinterpreted them as the bad guys - the Three Dots of the Apocalypse.

It's just one indication of how language usage is evolving at an increasingly rapid pace. But at least, for now anyway, bangers, screamers, shrieks and exclamitali (© Mike Bodnar) are safe. 

But, one wonders, for how long...

(Cue dramatic music. Fade to black.)

Epilogue

Julian didn't really die after falling from the tree. No characters were harmed in the writing of this article, although some Gen Z and millennial egos may have suffered mild bruising.