I hope nobody minds if I revisit this thread. I just happened to be discussing some writing-related questions with a friend and colleague who has recently published her second novel, Ophelia's Revenge. Among other things, such as the use of ?! for punctuation, we discussed the use of adverbs of manner. And her comment was, "It's out of style now, has been since the thirties. If you tried to get something published with very many, you'd probably never even get an agent."
As for ?! (and I've used it many a time myself) a closer look in the grammar books reveals that the proper punctuation for an exclamatory question is the exclamation point, i.e. Clark gasped. "What!" The interrogative word shows that it's a question; the exclamation point shows the tone of voice and mood of the speaker.
Schoolmarm
