Tag Archive - grammar help

Grammar Mistakes Are Funny … When They Aren’t Yours

Grammar mistakes make you laugh . . . except when someone points one out in your novel.

We see them everywhere: on signs in storefronts, on menus (especially), and building marquees. We just can’t believe some of the things people accidentally write (for, surely, they aren’t making those gaffes on purpose)!

“The average North American consumes more than 4,000 Africans.” (Hearty appetites?)

“Toilet only for disabled elderly pregnant children.” (See many of those around?)

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Are You Asking a Question or Not?

Wondering when to use a question mark? The answer is simple. When you expect an answer. Yet, I continually see writers getting “question mark happy” and sticking these bits of punctuation where they have no business being.

Direct questions—the kind journalists ask to get a story—demand an answer. They are often referred to as the 5 (or 6) W’s: who, what, when, where, why, and how.

What happened? Who was involved? When did it happen? Where? Why? How? Direct questions almost always begin with some variation of the 5 W’s. If one of these isn’t the first word in the sentence, it’s probably in there some place, like: “Well, just what are you doing in there?” or “Just who do you think you are?”

Sentences that begin with a being verb like are, is, were, and the like also indicate a direction question.

  • Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
  • Is anyone going with you?
  • May I come along?

All these questions demand an answer and a question mark.

And now to complicate things, just a little. We also pose indirect questions, but we don’t expect answers to these questions.

  • I wondered why he went in there.
  • I asked her what the problem was.

Sometimes writers prefer not to have question marks following rhetorical questions (a matter of choice):

  • Who could blame him.

No one really expects an answer to a question like that. And neither do these indirect questions require question marks.

Got it?