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Happy National Punctuation Day, B&E readers! (You even get an exclamation point for that one.)

To honor this important day, and as long as we're talking about exclamation points, I quote from the Eats, Shoots, and Leaves daily tear-off calendar. Believe it or not, there is someone at my office who's even geekier than I am. It's hers. But she shares highlights with me. Because I'm a geek.

Everyone knows the exclamation mark - or exclamation point, as it is known in America. It comes at the end of a sentence, is unignorable and hopelessly heavy-handed, and is known in the newspaper world as a screamer, a gasper, a startler or (sorry) a dog's cock.

So out of respect for this national holiday, I hope you'll lay off the dog's cock.

Thanks for reading.