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:
