Protect the flock! From JP and Hachette!
What are you doing right now?
Besides posting on here and replying to this thread. Original credit for this goes back to Fate and Nathan on MX.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Hannah on
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I have a question I need solved. Not because I need to prove I'm right, but because it's killing me to not know for sure.
"I thought you weren't talking to us?" <--- Is that a question or a statement?
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Permalink Reply by Contradiction on
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I think it's a statement, but I may be mislead on the definition of a question.
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That's what I thought too. Because the subject/verb is "I thought." The direct object is known as well, so he's not asking anything.
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Yeah. It implies that a response is wanted, but it's not actually asking for one. It's like the opposite of a rhetorical question.
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Permalink Reply by o0_flying high_0o on
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Which is why the question mark is important.
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If the question mark wasn't there, it wouldn't be a question. A question mark is put at the end of a question. If the sentence isn't a question, you don't put a question mark.
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If it wasn't a question it would be a random statement with no point whatsoever. It /needs/ to be a question. And you can phrase a statement in a questioning way, you do so in real life all the time. In literature, as someone is not speaking them for you, you show this by using a question mark.
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It's a declarative statement; he's declaring that he thought she wasn't talking to them.
A question mark is used only at the end of an interrogative statement, regardless of whether it wants a reply or not. The sentence was not interrogative because neither the subject, nor the verb, nor the direct object, nor the indirect object is unknown. -
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He is trying to find out why she is now.
By saying he thought she wasn't talking to them, the question is 'Why /are/ you talking to us?' However, this would be rude, so it's asked indirectly, by making a statement, and using intonation, as indicated by the question mark, to signify that she ought to treat it as a question. -
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Well, it's about that time of night where I get insufferably stubborn and start acting retarded, so for the good of everyone who will get very mad at me if I continue to try to speak intelligently, I'm going to pull a Tootsie Pop on this one and go with "the world may never know."
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XD Fair enough.
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