I would point out that English is a decentralized, non-codified language. French (as spoken in France) has a central board that decides what is and what is not correct French. That is why they still have the equivalent of their versions of "thee and thou" and why it took them years to come up with a French term for space shuttle while the boys at NASA took almost no time at all to name it.
Punctuation is a relatively modern thing - mostly invented by printers. That's why there's the debate over the double space after a period - it worked so much better with certain typefaces. An interesting book on this topic is "Eats, shoots, and leaves" - which goes into the history of the subject. And don't get me started on the interabang - which is such a useful but neglected part of punctuation. It's been in and out of use since 1962, mostly in ads and comics, but it is so useful.. Sentences such as
"You really want me to spank you ‽ "
really cry out for that combination of ? and ! .
Lacking a central authority beyond things such as the Little Brown Book (which is neither little nor brown) or various style guides, I will continue to maintain that
"You want a spanking." Frank told her.
is as correct as
"You want a spanking?" Frank asked her
or
"You want a spanking!" Frank exclaimed.
Otherwise
"You want a spanking,"
would be correct for all three, with the punctuation implied by "told her", "asked her", or "exclaimed".
Yes, I realise that I am part a very, very, very small minority here, but as I said there is no central authority for the language, meaning that "correct" English shifts usage patterns shift. If enough people join me on this we can change the world, much like how "literally" stopped meaning "literally". Will this ever reach the level of the Oxford Comma debate? Probably not, but let's face it - with the way English is shifting now the gr8 debates are moving to how to incorporate text speech.
Here's a link to how the current English debates are going, and they have little to do with the historic ones. And yes, the article's title is "OMG! Txts make u gd at writing? Srsly?"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2241325/OMG-Txts-make-u-gd-writing-Srsly-How- text-speak-help-pupils-write-essays.html#ixzz5465k7ExX