Just Rankin’ Sh!t

The 9 Greatest Punctuation Marks, Ranked

Full stop

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9. Curly bracket

In all honesty, this is only here so we can curse its existence. The handlebar mustache of punctuation (and not just because it looks like one). Shout out to all the programmers using it to write code, but how do you live with yourselves?

8. Exclamation point

Once the scotch bonnet of sentence-enders — punch and spice just when you needed it — societal overuse has turned it into a rote display of empty enthusiasm. For real! There’s no more off-putting way to make a first impression! Or end an email! And using more than one at a time somehow makes it exponentially worse!!!

7. Parentheses

The heroes of the area code pull double duty as wormholes through the spacetime continuum (physics metaphor!), enabling you to fit a thought inside of a thought. Deploying it just right gives you a portal to subtle meta-asides and tonal digression; unfortunately, deploying it just right (which very few do) usually takes a backseat to indiscriminate parentheseizures. (Exhibit A: this paragraph.)