h a l f b a k e r yAlas, poor spelling!
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Australian English has a sub-set with a lot of rising intonation, not necessarily questions.... |
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The trend in North American English has been to flatten the ends of questions, as a kind of constant bludgeon of obvious over indifferent. |
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Or you could stop asking questions altogether. It's a bad habit, and new inventions are required to accommodate them apparently. |
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Are you going to the party?
Tell me if you're going to the party. |
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Who is your friend?
Tell me who your friend is. |
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What is his name?
Tell me his name. |
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Where did you meet him?
Tell me where you met him. |
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Why do you like him?
Tell me why you like him. |
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Wow that's... actually pretty clever and simple. |
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Sounds a bit rude though. You could add please to the
beginning I suppose. |
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[doctorremulac3] I would guess that the whole practice of using questions is to empower the answerer and to make the questioner sound small like a mouse or something, to not raise defense. |
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Interesting phenomena 'uptalk'. I postulate as society has developed into information and knowledge based economies, this new age has brought about a greater culture of inquisitiveness, but also of uncertainty that is reflected in the rising intonation. So even statements are delivered with a characteristic uncertainty, as questions are naturally, not to suggest simple stupidity, but to elicit more information. |
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Funnily enough the importance of being able to do the intonation on words in English is always..well...stressed... in EFL training...and I actually believed it until I remembered Prof. Hawking... |
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Alternatively make every sentence end in a tag question. We used to have "Tag Question Thursday" in Nishiari, didn't we? But that's obvious, isn't it?...and so on. |
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Agh, "low to a high register" erm, that might get confused with the other "register", the one where we tend to talk back using the same level of formality/informality.. |
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//So even statements are delivered with a
characteristic uncertainty, as questions are naturally,
not to suggest simple stupidity, but to elicit more
information.// |
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I find it odd that in some dialects in this country
statements are made with an upswing of the last
word as if to day "Do you understand what I just
said?" |
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I know it's probably easiest to just say "question
mark" but I'm still not used to that. Plus it takes a
fraction of a second and time is money. |
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