Interjections
Finally, let's see what additional information we can learn about interjections.
An interjection is a spoken or written expression of emotion like "Wow!" for surprise, "Ouch!" for pain, "Wow!" for surprise, or "Argh!" for frustration. These words can stand alone and are usually capitalized and punctuated. While interjections are very short, they communicate a great deal because they are typically used to express emotion. For example:
"Ouch! That hurts!" I said to the vampire.
Whoops! Did I forget to include you in the zombie plan?
Interjections are common in spoken English but rare in written English because they are considered very casual. Therefore, interjections are not commonly used in college and business writing. However, interjections can be used in messages or emails sent to friends or family members as greetings (Hello, Bye) or to express your emotions. Check that your audience is familiar with the interjections you use since some are culturally and age-specific. Here are additional examples of interjections: Aha, Blah, Eek, Eww, Hmph, Whee, Whew, Whoa, Yikes, Yum.
In more formal written communication, the same emotion can be expressed grammatically within the structure of the sentence. Here are some examples showing how the emotion can be shown without using interjections:
| Interjections | Other Wording |
|---|---|
| Uh. Which one should I eat? (pause) Wow! This tastes good. (surprise) Oops. I dropped it. (embarrassment) |
He pauses and asks which one he should eat. He is surprised that it tastes good. He embarrassedly admits to dropping it. |
| Hey! What do you have there? Ooh! May I have that apple? Excellent! Thank you! |
He catches my attention and asks me what I had. He really wants the apple. He is pleased and grateful to me. |
Sources:
Adapted from Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interjection
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Adapted from Gay Monteverde, https://mhcc.pressbooks.pub/monteverde/chapter/3-7-conjunctions-interjections/ 
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License.
Video: Espresso English
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