What Is an Interjection, and How Do I Punctuate It?
by Tina Blue
November 17, 2002
Do you remember learning the eight parts of speech in grade school English classes? And do you remember what that eighth part of speech was? No doubt you at least vaguely recall nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, and conjunctions.
But do you recall, the most famous reindeer of them all?--Oops! Wrong cue!
What I meant to ask is do you recall the eighth part of speech? That would be--ta da!--the interjection.
An interjection is an exclamatory or parenthetical word, often appearing at the beginning of a sentence or clause, and having little or no grammatical connection to the rest of the sentence.
Interjections are often used to express surprise, excitement, or dismay (see, for example, the use of "Oops!" and "ta da!" above).
Another common use of interjections is to signal the resumption of discourse, or as filler, to make a more comfortable transition to the speaker's (or writer's) next point. If you are old enough to recall the 1980s, you probably remember that President Reagan was famous for beginning his debate responses with the interjection "Well."
"Well" is also often used in today's notably ironic discourse to signal that something is--or at least it should be--self-evident. For example, "Young people resent being bossed around by anyone, even if that person happens to be their--well, their boss."
Another interjection often used ironically to signal that something should be obvious is "Duh!" "Um" is sometimes used this way, too, although its effect is gentler, "Um, did you happen to bring a check for the money you promised to pay back today?"
The following list includes some of the most commonly used interjections in English, though many of them are decidedly archaic and therefore seldom used these days except in jest:
Interjections are set off from the clause that they are interjected into, whether they appear at the beginning of the clause or somewhere in the middle. If the interjection is intended to convey delight, excitement, surprise, dismay, or some other strong emotion, it can be set off with an exclamation point:
Sometimes surprise can be conveyed with a question mark:
In most cases, however, the interjection is set off with a comma--or if it occurs within a clause rather than at the beginning, it will be set off on both sides by a set of parenthetical commas, a set of parenthetical dashes, or, as in one example above, by a dash on one side, and a comma on the other.
~Well, you know I never meant you to take it that way.
~Now, let's see what we can do about this problem.
~Here, let me get that for you.
~Oh, will you grab that package on your way out the door?
Used sparingly, interjections can add spice to one's speech or writing. But it is a fairly heavy spice, so try not to overdo it. As in speech, excessive use of interjections in writing is a stylistic tic that marks one's style as strained and immature.
~Young people resent being bossed around by anyone, even if that person happens to be their--well, theirboss.