I’ve been a longtime reader of The Sunday Long Read by Don Van Natta (and I highly suggest subscribing if you love long-form editorial content as much as I do). In the March 9th issue, Bob Sassone, a columnist for The Saturday Evening Post, shared a ranking of his favorite punctuation: 

Punctuation, Ranked

1. Interrobang
2. Period
3. Question Mark
4. Exclamation Point 
5. Comma
6. Hyphen/Em Dash/En Dash 
7. Parentheses 
8. Quotation Mark 
9. Colon
10. Apostrophe
11. Semicolon

As an editor, proofreader, writer, one-time literary criticism-loving research essay-penning Literature major, and general word nerd, this piqued my interest. It also got me thinking, if I were to do my own version of this, what would my punctuation ranking look like? 

1. Interrobang
2. Em Dash
3. Semicolon
4. Ellipses 
5. Bracket
6. Comma
7. Parentheses
8. Hyphen
9. Colon
10. Question Mark
11. Exclamation Point

Let me tell you, that was a much more difficult task than I had anticipated it to be. But ol' Bobby's right about one thing—interrobang (?!) is, by far, the best form of punctuation. So much so that one of my oldest friends and I have a pact to get matching interrobang tattoos and call ourselves the #InterrobangerSisters (she hasn't signed off on the latter part, but it will happen). We've also had a 20-year pact to get matching finger tattoos that read "Lanolin" as an inside joke relating to the movie Anchorman, but I digress.

Interrobang is clearly the best because, aside from being the most fun looking, it's easily the most underrepresented and misunderstood. Despite there being an entire Seinfeld episode subplot dedicated to the exclamation point, interrobang could easily be described as "just imagine Jerry Seinfeld saying anything." According to Grammarist, it is "a combination of the word interro, meaning “interrogation point” (a technical name for a question mark), and bang (slang for the exclamation point)." A quick image search will show you that many people improperly format it—it should be a question mark (?) followed by an exclamation point (!) (?!), though, technically, it should be one overlapping the other (🙹). Despite this once being a button on typewriter keyboards, it hasn't had its own custom stylized key since the 1980s.

If you want to use it properly, feel free to copy and paste the one I shared in the previous post. #LetsBringTheInterrobangBack

From there, Bob Sassone and I vary greatly in our list. My second favorite, and where I especially differ from Bob, being the em dash. I am an Em Dash Warrior, and most of my proofreading career has been spent correcting people's misuse of my beloved em dash. You'll notice, unlike Bob, I've split em dash and hyphens into their own places on the list, mostly because of how often em dash is misused and confused for the others. Hyphens, em dashes, and en dashes all serve distinct purposes and, in my opinion, shouldn't be grouped together.

Here's a quick and dirty guide on how to remember how to use them:

Em dashes: The em dash (—) functions like a comma, a colon, or parenthesis, usually used to set off extra information. As a girly who loves tangents and sidebars but gets anxious about comma overuse, em dashes are a dream. And remember, slightly elongated, the equivalent of two hyphens together to make one, NO spaces around it and the words it's between. Your editor/proofreader will thank you ;).

Hyphens: A hyphen is the one that's on your keyboard, this li'l guy (-). Used to join words and separate syllables. Hyphens are a little further down the list because they're not as sexy as a lot of other punctuation, but man do I love using them in adjectives.

En dashes: They have no real use. Literally no one knows what they do or why they exist, other than to confuse people and dim em dash's shine. En dashes hold no place in my heart and therefore do not appear on my list and, frankly, should be abolished from grammar.

Semicolons are so often maligned because, again, they're just misunderstood. People are intimidated by the semicolon. They're like the comma's sophisticated older cousin. Commas want to be semicolons, but they haven't had the life experience yet to play on their level. Semicolons allow thoughts to just hang together while giving them the space they need to express their individuality. We stan inclusive punctuation.

I know, ellipsis often signal danger. And I too hate when they are overused (looking at you, all-caps-lock-using boomers [see how I used my hyphens there?]). But you have to admit that a well-placed ellipsis to build anticipation or dread just... ugh, it just does something to me. Chef kiss, no notes.

Bracket! I don't use brackets as much as I'd like, mostly because I'm never quite sure that I know how to properly use brackets. But they're fun to look at and way more fun to write out in analog than parenthesis. According to my literally just now research, square brackets are more common in English writing, compared to America's round ones. But square brackets do serve an important purpose: corrections. These guys are kind of dicks sometimes, correcting other people's words and thoughts but we kinda dig that they do that, don't we? Like the asshole you can't help but love.

I won't dwell on commas. But they're important, quite possibly the most important of all punctuation. I want to hate them. They give me anxiety. But without them, I don't know where I'd be. Thank you, commas. I may not always show you the appreciation you deserve, but you mean a lot to me.

Parenthesis almost didn't make my list. No real reason why other than some PTSD from learning proper (and improper) parenthetical referencing in high school and college. Again, I'm all for extra, nonessential info and tangents, and are some of my most-used punctuation marks. They should probably be higher on the list, definitely above or swapped with brackets. But my mind has been made and I refuse to change it (unless I go back and edit this later)!

Colons have a lot of jobs. Some of those jobs are in math, and that's why they're kind of far down on the list. Plus, I always use them and hyphens interchangeably in lists and then have to go back and pour over what I wrote to make sure I've formatted everything correctly so they can kind of be a burden. Still an A+ design, though.

Ah, the question mark. I'm a woman of many questions. I like to think of myself as a deep thinker, a hobbyist philosopher, if you will. But the most condescending people in the world also love overusing question marks and have really given them a bad name. Could they ever redeem themselves? Maybe, but they'll never be as cool as the upside-down question mark in Spanish.

Oh, before I get to my final thought, a quick note on quotation marks: they're annoying and I hate them. They never format the same way twice and Microsoft Word will occasionally decide that it's going to employ „low" quotation marks without my consent and I can never figure out how to fix them. Boo.

And now, bringing up the rear...

Despite there being an entire Seinfeld episode subplot dedicated to the exclamation point, the humble exclamation point falls low on my list (though not off it completely, sorry, periods, you're just too final). I think it's from reading so many Archie Comics where every line ends in an exclamation point, they've sort of lost their meaning to me. It's like when you say a word so many times it doesn't sound like a word anymore. Also, there's no other punctuation that I have to agonize over using in emails the way I do exclamation points. Maybe I'm just no longer a very excitable person in life, but these have lost all their charm.

Though if I start referring to it as just "bang" instead, it might shoot itself up to the number one spot.

Do you play favorites when it comes to punctuation? Or do you like to write with reckless abandon, freeing yourself from the shackles of grammatical stylings? Let me know!