laughing a song: How many exclamation points are acceptable in a...

laughing a song

"Laughter? Do people ever care about laughter? I mean real laughter, beyond joking, mockery, ridicule. Laughter, an immense and delicious sensual pleasure, wholly sensual pleasure...

"I said to my sister, or she said to me, come over, shall we play laughter? We stretched out side by side on a bed and began. By pretending, of course. Forced laughter. Laughable laughter. Laughter so laughable it made us laugh. Then it came, real laughter, total laughter, taking us into its immense tide. Bursts of repeated, rushing, unleashed laughter, magnificent laughter, sumptuous and mad... And we laugh our laughter to the infinity of laughter... Oh laughter! Laughter of sensual pleasure, sensual pleasure of laughter; to laugh is to live profoundly."

(MK)

13:19 3rd Sep 2010

How many exclamation points are acceptable in a work-related email? Does it depend on how excited!!! you are [pretending to be]? Is it just one, because that’s technically correct? Are they too informal? Can we use any at all?

And what about the quesclamation mark?! Is that even real‽

Or for emphasis (!) or sarcasm (!) ?

When I say “Good afternoon, So-and-so!” I find just one! punctuation mark half-hearted, and none quite rude, while two!! looks odd to me, and I think three!!! may make me seem overly-enthused about the day.

Also, what about ellipses…?