"(Emergency!)"

Illini-alert is a new program being used by the University of Illinois to notify its users of emergency situations on campus.

Yesterday, mass text messages and emails were sent to students/faculty/employees through Illini-alert to inform them about a campus-wide power outage. I was driving back to school from the Chicago area when I received this message on my phone.

The subject line read, "(Emergency!)" and I'm not sure the exclamation point was necessary. This power outage or any other emergency should call for the use of such punctuation. The word "emergency" carries enough urgency as it is.

Also, the text message/email ended in, "Check local media for details!" The exclamation mark in this sentence resembles some sort of promotional tool, similar to what you'd expect on a contest poster or an ad about a clearance sale.

According to the 7th edition of When Words Collide by Lauren Kessler and Duncan McDonald, exclamation marks should be used to express strong emotions or express surprise, which does not justify either of Illini-alert's uses of the punctuation(!)

I actually don't feel that strongly about the misuse of the exclamation mark, but I thought it was worth mentioning because it bothered me some.