Monday, June 15, 2015

Pointed criticism.

As the author of several musicals, I was told by a friend to never use an exclamation point in a title as it is now considered trite and super corny. It was fine when Oklahoma! debuted in 1944. But there have been too many since, including Oliver!, Cannibal!, Carnival! Sarafina! Hello Dolly! and Mama Mia! to name just six, not to mention Drat! The Cat! which had two.  In short, for uses other than actual text, the exclamation point is the mark of a amateur. So it is no surprise that Jeb! Bush not only uses one after his first name, but has employed it as his dippy logo. On the other hand when I looked up "exclamation point" (or mark) on Google, one of the definitions was: "An exclamation mark may be used to close questions that are meant to convey extreme emotion, as in 'What are you doing! Stop!'" Since the ever-goofy Jeb Bush doesn't have a shot in hell at the presidency and is further cursed by the Bush name, and he creeps me out, my question to him is: "What are you doing! Stop!"

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