Punctuation Pests

I'm not a radical about punctuation but as everyone else, I do have some dislikes or pet peeves. While there are many people who do, as I, blog, which is about the only way an unknown can be "published" other than indulging in the costly vanity press, belong to the ordinary fussy writing set who insist on some grammatical standards, however meager.  The blog is free and free-wheeling when cranky folk will allow it since they somehow always think it is about them.  They forget that they and their foibles are mere catalysts for bigger and better ideas. When someone writes to me on a friendly basis, I favour the messages that avoid certain unnecessary or incorrect marks. I am sorry to report this, but again, I am only blogging which is as free-wheeling as a walk on a sandy beach.  The parenthesis is one set of marks I don't mind if they are used correctly. And no; they are not brackets. Brackets have corners and parentheses have curves and their uses are not the same.  The curvaceous marks are useful for explanation on a topic pre-mentioned. You may place them around numbers and a few other things, but they are not toys to insert endlessly. Use them with discretion.  The next peeve of mine  that is often seen, is the exclamation point (ecphoneme), and may I point out, if used too generously, can have annoying results. Certainly, it is handy to express high feelings, but there is no need for repetition of the little thing. To do so, only makes you feel better, not me. More than one, adds another notch of volume and I don't like being yelled at, even in writing. Also, the exclamation point, while helping you to rid yourself of ire, only passes it on to me. No thanks for it. When I say these rather haughty things about others, I have to admit that I, too, commit punctuation sins. I have an on-going relationship with the dash, the short one. There should be a long one, the more correct chap, but it has fallen from favour, evidently, since it now goes down and under and not between words on my keyboard. I love the thing, short or long and use it in all sorts of grammatically illegal ways. If you want to get snooty about it, it should be used for appositive expressions but I tend to ignore all that and use it any way I wish. I know a couple of best-selling authors who spread it like peanut butter, all over their entire novels. And while they make the text cumbersome  to  read, you do eventually, become used to them and forge on as though they are mere pebbles in the path.  The short dash which is all we are left with, the long one long-gone on the modern keyboard, is what we are stuck with. It should be used only for dates, numbers and so on, but now it has become a multi-purpose companion to be used in the same way as its big brother, the long dash. But that is fodder for being accused of old-fashionedness. The advent of the quickie little devices or electronic  annoyances of "the social media" has encouraged the complete disappearance of decorum in punctuation and replaced it with  anachronisms and amputated language that is likely to stay. There are no marks or points to be had, other than the little @ and the ever-present "dot".  Spelling has reverted to its archaic niche and sentence structure is banished along with logarithmic tables. Moot is whether that is - good or bad. ????!!!!