The Writing Department's use of "Exclamation Points". Anybody else find their use cheesy? Or motivating possibly?

by miseryloveselders 57 Replies latest jw friends

  • miseryloveselders
    miseryloveselders

    Something I've been meaning to ask for a while since coming here, is wsup with the Writing Department's use of exclamation points? I'm no literature buff or anything, but to me personally, the exclamation points cheapen whatever they're trying to get across. Here's some examples from the new Jeremiah book.

    How thankful we can be for the teaching done by Christian shepherds!

    Think how this must have pleased Jeremiah!

    Imagine how Jeremiah must have felt on learning of Josiah's death!

    Did that make Jeremiah a failure? Far from it!

    Did the prophet stop preaching because so many were apathetic to the message? On the contrary!

    How easily one might start to minimize the wise, balanced advice from the faithful and discreet slave class about additional education and start to miss meetings!

    What an impressive way for Jehovah to teach his people!

    What a recomendation!

    Yes, every faithful Christian today can learn from Jeremiah about choosing companions wisely!

    Maybe I'm being petty, I don't know. Personally, it comes off like a really bad comic book. Think Batman on TV during the "Bam!" "Pow!" days. Did the exclamation points motivate you any? Did it make the articles more exciting? For any former Bethelites, anybody know where this style of writing originated? Who's template is this?

  • steve2
    steve2

    Are you raising a petty issue? Far from it! Should we disregard your sharing with us such truly fine sentiments? To the contrary! What truly important food you serve us at this time, miseryloveselders! Indeed, this sharing is so important that it calls for two exclamation points!!

    But seriously, yes, these sorts of tiresomely motivational sentences are much suited to children's books..which, in a way, is about the intellectual capacity of the rank and file. Now there's a sentence that really deserves several exclamation points - but I will restrain myself...almost!!!!!

  • Alonewitheverybody
    Alonewitheverybody

    How correct your observations are!

  • Mythbuster
    Mythbuster

    Punctuation Manipulation!

  • keyser soze
    keyser soze

    Yes, indeed!

  • Opus92
    Opus92

    The exclamation points motivate me to stop reading. How sad for the Writing Department!

  • sd-7
    sd-7

    How sad! How much more so! How joyful he must have been! What a refreshing source of encouragement!

    Shut the **** up!

    Oh--that last one was not from a publication. They should have done that with "I made an ass of myself"! How appropriate that would have been!

    I always thought they were trying to elicit emotions from the reader that were just not there. It was like, okay, so I'm supposed to feel what you feel, right, creepy Watchtower voice in my head reading this article? I usually didn't get it even while I was in. I'd read with feeling from the platform, but...it was acting, really. I was a good voice actor.

    That's about all I can say about that, really. The articles remained boring unless they were all about sex, dating, marriage, disfellowshipping, Jesus, or a new explanation of some scripture. Pretty much otherwise, I was bored. Boredom examples: field service, yeartext, recycled new publication talk from convention, and what ever happened to that spiritual temple stuff they used to do long articles on?

    Okay...I'm done.

  • Alonewitheverybody
    Alonewitheverybody

    However we should ask ourselves these questions: How I feel about the use of questions that tell me to autoexamine myself? Am I really asking myself all the questions that the paragraphs tell me to? What can I do to ask myself all these questions?

  • OUTLAW
    OUTLAW

    Armageddon!..Satan!..

    The New System!..Jehovah!..

    Dead Ted!..

    ......................... ...OUTLAW

  • broops100
    broops100

    Aaargh - the sad thing is I put exclamation marks at the end of everything I write (!) - I never realised it but its one of those things I must have picked up...(!) Ive tried sooo hard to not put any in on this post of mine & it has been really difficult (!)

    I need a new writing style.

    The reason why I add them is because I hoped to give the reader the impression of suprise or for them to be in awe of the text, clearly Im a dopey cow & still sucked in by the Borgs writing methods thats what they wanted from us..... (behold no exclamation mark)

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