Fun Stuff > CHATTER
This drives me insane - and I can't explain why
Tova:
--- Quote from: ChaoSera on 06 Feb 2016, 03:32 ---Does it make you feel better knowing you're not alone? I feel the same way.
--- End quote ---
Actually, yes. Much better.
Or more annoyingly:
(click to show/hide)Actually? Yes.
Argh. Okay, I'll stop now.
--- Quote from: Metope on 06 Feb 2016, 04:31 ---I guess I've never noticed? Kind of annoying though.
--- End quote ---
You will now start to see it everywhere.
--- Quote from: pwhodges on 06 Feb 2016, 10:17 ---This construction - an embedded question with a question mark in the middle of a sentence - is described in the Oxford Guide to Style; there's a full page on it. Correctly, it should not have a capital letter following the question mark. Examples in the guide are: "Where now? they wonder.", "He pondered why me? till his head hurt.", and "He left - would you believe it? - immediately after the ball."
--- End quote ---
My example is not quite like those, but I don't quite have the grammatical nous to pinpoint exactly how. The question mark in mine seems to denote rising inflection rather than an embedded question. You're probably right about the capitalisation, though.
--- Quote from: jwhouk on 06 Feb 2016, 07:50 ---The comma over the question mark makes it less a question and more an observation/opinion. It's also conversational English, which is what is taught (more or less) in schools in America these days.
Blame Hemmingway.
--- End quote ---
Yes, it does very much appear to be conversational. Blaming Hemmingway seems a good default position. :-)
Akima:
I would write this:
"Gorgeous old world charm, but honestly, the reception could have been warmer."
I would not write this:
"Gorgeous old world charm, but honestly? The reception could have been warmer."
The latter strikes me as "Buffy speak", or perhaps more accurately, Whedonian English. I think an attempt is being made to convey a spoken English rhetorical tic that, if I absolutely had to, I would write something like this:
"Gorgeous old world charm, but honestly... the reception could have been warmer."
If one is not writing dialogue, I think bad things happen if you try to carry spoken English rhetorical tricks, like the "pause for effect", into written English. To be fair to Joss Whedon, he usually is writing dialogue.
--- Quote from: pwhodges on 06 Feb 2016, 10:17 ---This construction - an embedded question with a question mark in the middle of a sentence - is described in the Oxford Guide to Style; there's a full page on it. Correctly, it should not have a capital letter following the question mark.
--- End quote ---
That is fascinating. I did not know that a question mark could ever be used correctly except at the end of a sentence.
mustang6172:
It seems like there's a dangling participle, but I'm pretty sure "gorgeous" isn't a participle.
Putting a comma before the conjunction implies a compound sentence; however "Gorgeous old world charm" is a fragment at best.
Tova:
Yes, it's a fragment. The sentence was conversational in tone even before I added my little change to it.
I found it by googling "but honestly" (the first thing that popped into my head) and picking the first sentence that wasn't about Foo Fighters.
Tova:
--- Quote from: Akima on 06 Feb 2016, 19:12 ---The latter strikes me as "Buffy speak", or perhaps more accurately, Whedonian English. I think an attempt is being made to convey a spoken English rhetorical tic that, if I absolutely had to, I would write something like this:
"Gorgeous old world charm, but honestly... the reception could have been warmer."
If one is not writing dialogue, I think bad things happen if you try to carry spoken English rhetorical tricks, like the "pause for effect", into written English. To be fair to Joss Whedon, he usually is writing dialogue.
--- End quote ---
That is a nice insight. I had no idea that this was a Whedon trait. The way you would write it makes sense to me as well. I imagine that you probably would not, when speaking, add the upward inflection where you've put the ellipsis, whereas some others would.
Sorry for the double post.
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