Consider the following question, with two responses:

"Yeah I haven't seen him either lately. Why do you think that is?"

A)"Maybe he discovered that the Halfbakery is an immense waste of time."

B)"Maybe he discovered that the Halfbakery is an immense waste of time?"

Now B) is not technically a question, so it doesn't deserve a question mark. But there are times that you would pronounce it as a question, and by that I mean your voice would end on a higher pitch.

In prose, it is easy to get around this by writing:

"Maybe he discovered that the Halfbakery is an immense waste of time," I suggested, albeit with an air of uncertainty in my voice.

...or something along those lines.

Or, a new Suggestion Mark could be created for this specific purpose. Basically, it's an inverted comma, (a backwards "6"). The period symbolizes the end of a statement, and the upstroke represents your voice that trails upwards.

After substituting the suggestion mark for the question mark in B), both A) and B) are correct, and both carry different connotations. A), with a period, is more of a grim suggestion, while B) has uncertainty, and both are now gramatically correct because we redefined grammar to make them correct.
-- Cuit_au_Four, Feb 03 2006

Valley Girl Speak http://en.wikipedia...Valley_girl#Dialect
they speak most sentences like questions [xandram, Feb 03 2006]

Irony mark http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_mark
[carpeliam, Oct 25 2006]

hrm, perhaps a good idea? i hate it when MS Word is always underlining my uncertain suggetions in green.
-- carpeliam, Feb 03 2006


//my uncertain suggetions in green// Or, indeed, in red.
-- coprocephalous, Feb 03 2006


Well, [C4], a mod could move it, but might be scratching their head over why you don't do it yourself. [edit - the author suggested a moderator could put this idea in an appropriate category.]
-- lurch, Feb 03 2006


[lurch] I don't think a full stop is quite right for the end of that sentence - better to go with something more indicative of uncertain suggestion, like... oh, I don't know. I'll think of something.
-- friendlyfire, Feb 03 2006


Maybe_ we\ should\ add_ tonal/ symbols_ to the end_ of words_ like Chi\nese/ people_ do\ when they comm\un\icate\ via_ email/?
-- phundug, Feb 03 2006


Suggested category - Culture: Language: punctuation.
-- friendlyfire, Feb 03 2006


I suggest that both are valid responses to the hypothetical question. One would use the punctuation to indicate whether a further response was required. The full stop punctuates the sentence as a statement of possible fact. The topic can be considered closed. The question mark, however, clearly seeks an answer or some kind of validation.

I don't think that there is a need for an in-between punctuation mark.
-- Jinbish, Feb 03 2006


Yeah, like, what [Murdoch] said?
-- zeno, Feb 03 2006


Yeah, like, what [Murdoch] said.
-- Jinbish, Feb 03 2006


What is the reverse of this symbol.
-- wagster, Feb 03 2006


I don't understand what's wrong with using a question mark. If your issue is that it's grammatically incorrect, I say change the rules of grammar.
-- Worldgineer, Feb 03 2006


How about this?.
-- pashute, Mar 11 2006


I want to hear more about this Chi/nese\ tonal sliding thing/.

However, I believe [xandram] has, like, totally hit the nail on the head here with the whole, like, valley-girl thing??
-- zen_tom, Oct 25 2006


I suggest we use '>' - it's right with the other punctuation, and its not used in regular speech.
-- DesertFox, Oct 25 2006


Bone. The "uncertain statement" that sounds like a question really is a question. It's just that you are implying the verb that is eliminated from the sentence.

So when you say, "Maybe he discovered that the Halfbakery is an immense waste of time?" you are really implying "[Do you think that] maybe he discovered that the halfbakery..."
-- Jscotty, Oct 25 2006



random, halfbakery