FAMILY
Generation games
In his new series on family life, our columnist rails against poor punctuation in emails, especially the overuse of exclamation marks!
by MARK PALMER
Just occasionally, an unexpected hero emerges from the jungle of modern language. Or, in this case, the punctuation enclosure within that tortuous jungle. His name is Eike Schmidt and he's the director of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, which has just overtaken the Colosseum as Italy's most popular site.
The estimable Mr Schmidt has a thing about his staff writing sloppy, unclear and poorly punctuated emails. In particular, he can't stand the overuse of exclamation marks.