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The newsroom recently hosted an internal game show to quiz editors on grammar rules and Times style. It was educational, exciting and all-around geeky.

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The clue appeared on a large blue screen: “In news writing, this punctuation mark is rarely needed except in quotations of shouted or deeply emotional phrases.”

A buzzer went off and an editor answered: What is an exclamation point?

“Yes!” Peter Blair responded. (The exclamation point is appropriate here. Mr. Blair did indeed shout.)

“Reporters in the room,” he added, “take notice.”

Perhaps Mr. Blair was excited because he was fulfilling something of a childhood dream by hosting a game show in the newsroom, to test contestants on their knowledge of The Times’s Manual of Style and Usage.

The manual, known in the newsroom as the stylebook, helps journalists keep track of grammar

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