Why do we have the question mark

[Onslow]

¿

Fer a minute there I thought Jimmy Durante had dropped by--upon closer inspection, I realize it's Mr.Magoo.

 

[jeff black]

Is choice part of evaluation?

Bloom's Taxonomy of Questions

Holy shit, I know what those are!
:tongue:

 

[jeff black]

I don't know why, but I am struggling to think of circumstances when you wouldn't know that something was a question. Are there any languages that don't have a question mark.

Why not.

Am I asking why not or am I in simple agreeance?

Also,

Pardon me
Excuse me
Any sentence that asks for confirmation and can also be a statement:
Two heads are better than one OR She sells sea shells by the sea shore.:biggrin1:

 

[B_Hickboy]

You wanna fuck me.

is very different from

You wanna fuck me?

Yes, please. Actually, I do.

 

[D_Tintagel_Demondong]

Cool... a linguistics thread. Since it's my field, I'm compelled to add my $.02.

In many Indo-European languages, there are three ways to form a question:

1. Inversion.
2. A question mark.
3. Intonation.

Inversion is commonly used without a question mark in "Chatspeak." I'm not a fan of this grammar, but it's very useful when you are thumbing a tiny blackberry keyboard. I'll skip intonation since it isn't relevant to written English.

An example of inversion in chatspeak is:

"r u going to meet me tonite"

Since inversion is used, the question mark isn't really needed. Slightly more grammatical would be:

"u r going to meet me tonite?"

It has only one more character and would be considered more formal, but it's clunky and requires using the Shift Key.

I am not a prescriptivist by any means, and I have no problem with chatspeak when it's prudent. I only become concerned when it crosses over to normal writing.

 

[D_alex8]

¿

And, more to the point, ؟

There are still numerous grammatical constructions in Arabic which point to a sentence being a question, without the need for a question-mark. But most of these are seen ever less in contemporary prose (in particular the possibility of forming a question simply by placing an alif-hamza [أ] at the beginning of a sentence, which remained commonplace usage when I was a child)... with these traditional forms of (written) question-forming all losing ground to the borrowed 'reversed-question-mark' above.

 

[Pecker]

If there were no question marks Alex Trebek would be unemployed.

 

[fortiesfun]

In Spanish, of course, the "¿" precedes the question and the "?" follows it, so it serves a real purpose in writing by alerting you to what is coming. In English, it serves only to eliminate ambiguity after the fact. Is not that you can't figure it out on your own, but the punctuation saves times by confirming your suspicion.

As a college professor who reads a lot of bad papers, I can tell you that absence of punctuation does not render the paper unreadable, or nonsensical, but it does make it far more time consuming to digest.

 

[ManlyBanisters]

Bridgekeeper: What... is your quest

I seek the grail :biggrin1:

 

[snoozan]

Yes, please. Actually, I do.

Bring it on, honey, I am so so so ready...

 

[D_Tintagel_Demondong]

In the age of instant text messaging, SMS dialects aren't uncommon. It seems to be the trend these days -- especially with kids striving for a unique virtual identity. I believe that SMS is a newglish vernacular, akin to rebus from centuries ago to leet from about 10 years ago.

Ignoring punctuation in English is nothing new. THe only difference is that this time it's here to stay, so we should all get used to it.

 

[HazelGod]

THe only difference is that this time it's here to stay, so we should all get used to it.

Fuck. That. Bullshit.

 

[earllogjam]

To get right to your question--YES there are languages without question marks. None of the ancient languages--Greek, Latin, Arabic, etc had punctuation at all. The existence of a question was indicated by "interrogative particles"--sometimes question words familiar to us like "why," "what," etc., other times by suffixes often attached to the main verb, or by words untranslatable into English that function simply to alert the reader to a question. For example, in Latin, where there's no word order to help, these suffixes (or "enclitic particles") are important:

Habes librum (You have a book)

Habesne librum (You have a book, don't you?)

Interesting enough all East Asian Languages - Chinese, Japanese, Korean only have adopted punctuation in modern times. No punctuation is still the case in calligraphy and poetry.

From my study of Japanese in college I remember that there are letters or verb forms which can serve as punctuation similar to Latin. In this case the alphabetic letters, "ka", "te", "to" serve as punctuation.

Tabemasu = He eats.
Tabemasu ka = He eats?
Tabemasu te = "He eats," he said.
Kore to are to sore = This, that, those

The subject (I, he, she, they, we) in Japanese is often assumed since they feel it is rude to single out anybody so it is reflected in the language. So "tabemasu", can also mean I eat, she eats, they eat, we eat. Context determines its real meaning.

Who would have known I would one day use this information? Brought to you by my college language requirement. :smile:

 

[aristarchus]

Who would have known I would one day use this information? Brought to you by my college language requirement. :smile:

Hallelujah! I welcome such valuable encouragement to keep fighting--not to mention bitch-slapping--the nattering numbskulls (aka mediocre half-deans) who want to abolish our language requirements!!:smile: If anything, language instruction becomes more important with every passing day rather than less. (And thanks for a Japanese lesson; not a language I know anything about!)

 

[LeeEJ]

Accordingly, the earliest use of the question mark I (personally) have seen is in the late Middle Ages--14th century--...

Good lord, you're old!...

:wink:

 

[rob_just_rob]

I give up - I can't work a "Dr. Evil's father" reference into this thread unobtrusively.

 

[aristarchus]

Good lord, you're old!...

:wink:

Life begins at 600, darling.:tongue: