Oh! Em! Gee!

Would it be a terrible blow to my carbon footprint if I flew across the Atlantic just to slap somebody for very, very annoying punctuation?

Now, I admit that I am guilty of over using the exclamation mark these days. I remember the days when exclamation marks were hardly used but with email and texts they seem to be all over the place. They do have their use as tone in these media is hard to get across (I'm sure we've all had misunderstandings of this nature more than once) but some people are getting ridiculous. *

*See how I resisted the urge to use an exclamation mark there for example. Sheesh.

Ok, here's the body of the offending email:

Hey there!
I am writing with an enquiry! I have a group of about 20 University students coming to Edinburgh from May 14-May 27, 2007, as a part of a short-term study abroad program where they will receive credit for Political Science. It is led by University professors, but I was
curious as to whether you ever do lectures or any type of workshops?
If so, great! If not, would you mind guiding me in that direction?
Thank you so much!

Despite the extreme irritation this over use of exclamation caused me I sent a civil and grammatically correct reply to this individual. (Incidentally I've removed anything that could identify the origin of this email and while doing so noticed some bad grammar. What do they teach people these days?)

Guess what the reply was?

"Thank you for your guidance!"

I will allow myself an appropriate exclamation mark here - Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!