Today's topic is how to format questions. You think you already know this, don't you? I wonder if you're right.
Almost everybody knows how to write a plain vanilla question like “What's new?” They're called direct questions, but there are trickier scenarios. What happens when a sentence seems to be half statement, half question? What if you're asking an indirect question, or asking a question that also seems to need an exclamation point, or dealing with a quotation that contains a question, and so on? I'll answer all these questions.
Questions Masquerading as Statements
Sometimes even direct questions can be tricky because they can look like statements, and the only way to tell your reader otherwise is to add a question mark (1). There's a big difference in meaning between “He went to the store.” and “He went to the store?” Yet the only difference between the two sentences is that one ends with a period and one ends with a question mark. The question mark makes it a direct question that shows surprise. What the heck was he doing at the store?
The Chicago Manual of Style also says you can use an exclamation point instead of a question mark in such instances of surprise. (2)
A Question Flurry
What if you have a bunch of questions and you want to string them all together?
I once saw a funny scene in a movie (I think it was “Cats & Dogs”) where a dog realizes he can talk, and it goes something like this: “You can hear me? Can I have a cookie? Two cookies? Four cookies? Twenty cookies?”
Those add-on questions at the end aren't complete sentences, but they each get a question mark anyway. It reads “Can I have a cookie? Two cookies? Four cookies?” and so on.
They aren't complete sentences, and the rules about capitalization are vague. The AP Stylebook says to capitalize the first letter of each add-on question, (3) but some books say to capitalize the first letter if the questions are “nearly a sentence” (4) or have “sentence-like status,” (5) so you have to use your own judgment. I would capitalize them.
Statements with Tag Questions
Now, what about those little questions that come at the end of a statement? You didn't forget my birthday, did you? It's fun to play maracas, isn't it?
Bits like “did you” and “isn't it” are called tag questions, and they turn the whole sentence into a question, so use a question mark at the end. (6, 7)
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