Wednesday, March 25, 2015

punctuating "I wonder"

When you start a sentence with "I wonder," you're making a declaration about your state of mind. Because it's a declaration, it's a not a question, so don't use a question mark.

WRONG: I wonder how he is?
RIGHT: I wonder how he is.

Think of it this way:

JACK: Is there a God?
JILL: I wonder.
JACK: You wonder what?
JILL: I wonder whether there's a God, silly.

Jill's just declaring her state of mind. It would have made no sense to punctuate either of her lines with a question mark.


_
at

2 comments:

  1. SJHoneywellMarch 25, 2015 at 11:19:00 AM GMT+9

    Aside from cases where it is done via inflection, English word order always takes over. Absent one of the "question" words, declarative statements have the subject before the verb and questions have the verb before the subject.

    I (subject) wonder (verb) equates to a declarative structure.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kevin KimMarch 25, 2015 at 3:10:00 PM GMT+9

    Most excellent.

    ReplyDelete

READ THIS BEFORE COMMENTING!

All comments are subject to approval before they are published, so they will not appear immediately. Comments should be civil, relevant, and substantive. Anonymous comments are not allowed and will be unceremoniously deleted. For more on my comments policy, please see this entry on my other blog.