Florence Hazrat – författare

'So. Good. So. Sharp. So. Clear. You. Need. This. Book. Period' Lucy Mangan, author of Bookish'A roller coaster of a story' New York TimesSince the dawn of writing, punctuation has helped us tell our stories. Scribes in ancient Alexandria simplified their scrolls with full stops and commas, opening the doors of their library to the entire world. During the Renaissance, semicolons and exclamation marks empowered writers to satirise society and inject life and passion into their texts. Even today, the youngest generations creating new rules for emojis, caps and irony in the lexicon of online language.In this riotous global history, Florence Hazrat reveals the creators and rebels who made punctuation what it is today, conjuring new meanings from commas and colons, parentheses and pilcrows. Witty and original, On the Mark journeys across the world and through the evolution of language, celebrating the silent marks that infuse our words with meaning and shape our literary cultures.

The International Bestseller - Featured on BBC Radio 4Love it or hate it, the exclamation mark has been with us from Beowulf to the spam email - an enthusiastic history for language lovers!Few punctuation marks elicit quite as much love or hate as the exclamation mark. It's bubbly and exuberant, an emotional amplifier whose flamboyantly dramatic gesture lets the reader know: here be feelings! Scott Fitzgerald famously stated exclamation marks are like laughing at your own joke; Terry Pratchett had a character say that multiple !!! are a 'sure sign of a diseased mind'. So what's the deal with ! ?An Admirable Point recuperates the exclamation mark from its much maligned place at the bottom of the punctuation hierarchy. It explores how ! came about in the first place some six hundred years ago, and uncovers the many ways in which ! has left its mark on art, literature, (pop) culture, and just about any sphere of human activity - from Beowulf to spam emails, ee cummings to neuroscience.Whether you think it's over-used, or enthusiastically sprinkle your writing with it, ! is inescapable.

The International Bestseller - Featured on BBC Radio 4Love it or hate it, the exclamation mark has been with us from Beowulf to the spam email - an enthusiastic history for language lovers!Few punctuation marks elicit quite as much love or hate as the exclamation mark. It''s bubbly and exuberant, an emotional amplifier whose flamboyantly dramatic gesture lets the reader know: here be feelings! Scott Fitzgerald famously stated exclamation marks are like laughing at your own joke; Terry Pratchett had a character say that multiple !!! are a ''sure sign of a diseased mind''. So what''s the deal with ! ? An Admirable Point recuperates the exclamation mark from its much maligned place at the bottom of the punctuation hierarchy. It explores how ! came about in the first place some six hundred years ago, and uncovers the many ways in which ! has left its mark on art, literature, (pop) culture, and just about any sphere of human activity - from Beowulf to spam emails, ee cummings to neuroscience.Whether you think it''s over-used, or enthusiastically sprinkle your writing with it, ! is inescapable.