The Necessity of Punctuation Rules

Set rules of punctuation allow writers to express their feelings and tone in their work, much like pauses and changes in pitch do when speaking.  Looking at the photo above, Snoopy's feelings are clear because the punctuation rules state that question marks show confusion and exclamation points can show anger or shock.  If these rules changed, the meaning of this cartoon would be misinterpreted and the feelings the artist originally wanted to convey would be lost.  In "Notes on Punctuation", a colon is said to "give you the feeling of being ordered around" and exclamation points are "irritating" (Source D).  These connotations that are linked to the punctuation reveal the many ways that they can express an author's feelings and create tone.  Elizabeth Austen in "On Punctuation" uses flowery language in poem to express her emotions because she didn't use any punctuation in it.  It is a waste of time for an author to use more adjectives than needed to convey tone when a simple piece of punctuation would suffice.  Ben Dolnick in "Semicolons: A Love Story" hated semicolons but then discovered that "no other piece of punctuation...captures the way in which our thoughts are both liquid and solid, wave and particle" (Source E).  He realized that no other piece of punctuation conveys the same meaning as a semicolon.  Each piece of punctuation has its own feeling associated with it.  By changing the rules, it would lead to the misinterpretation of tone and the emotions the author originally wanted to convey would be gone.