I’ve been called strange more times than I’d like to count for something seemingly insignificant. I like putting a space before my question marks and exclamation marks.
For example:
What are you doing? vs. What are you doing ?
That’s amazing! vs. That’s amazing !
Tell me the second ones don’t look better.
I’ve been doing this for years and I can’t entirely explain why, but something about having the punctuation immediately attached to the word feels unnecessarily aggressive.
A question is already a question. An exclamation is already an exclamation. These are pretty intense punctuation marks if you think about it. Why must we also suffocate the poor things by pressing them against the last word ?
Give them some room to breathe, please !
I know this isn’t standard English punctuation. I’m aware. But language is also visual, and the way we arrange things on a page contributes to how they feel when we read them. At least that’s how I’ve convinced myself to justify this habit of mine.
Perhaps it’s entirely irrational. I really don’t care, it looks and feels better.
Cheers,