Qualifier. See modifier, adjective, and adverb.
Question. Sentences or sentence fragments can ask questions either directly or indirectly. Punctuation and order of words vary, depending on the type of question.
Sentences that are wholly devoted to questioning or asking something are called “direct questions”: “What is that?” “Is it the thing you said you would bring?” “Is it as heavy as it looked when we first considered buying it and bringing it here?” “Expensive?” Each of these questions is a direct question, even the last sentence fragment and the longer sentences that convey information as well as asking for more. The writer has indicated the directness of the questions in several ways typical of such sentences.
First, like all direct questions, the example sentences end in question marks (?). Second, like many direct questions, some of these sentences invert word order. Commonly the inversion puts an auxiliary verb at the beginning of the sentence (“is” “do,” and the like) and follows it with a pronoun of some sort (“it” in the examples, though many others are used). The next word is often a noun, which can be seen as a shifted subject or a subject complement more or less normally placed. Other words that frequently start such sentences are interrogative pronouns (“what,” “which,” and “who”), as in the first example sentence.
Word order can be more elaborately changed, and other words can start questions (“how,” “why,” and so on). But the main features are clear: inversion, questioning word to start, and question mark to end. As with all inversions, those used for questions should be checked carefully to ensure agreement among all grammatical elements—movement of elements for question order can put subjects far from verbs, objects, or subject complements. Make sure all is in order.
The most common agreement errors occur with the interrogative pronoun “who” as the first word in a question: Should it be “who” (nominative case) or “whom” (objective case) when it hangs out there at the start? How can one tell? The simplest test of case in such sentences is to answer the question with a pronoun that changes form in its objective case: “Who is to be asked? She is to be asked.” “Her” is obviously wrong here since it is not an object but the subject of a passive construction. “Whom did you see? I saw him.” Clearly you see something or someone in an active sentence as its object, and therefore the objective “whom” is correct.
Besides their obvious function of asking for information, questions can play an emphasizing role by varying sentence structure and thus calling attention to something. In this function questions are often used rhetorically, to make a statement rather than request enlightenment: “Is our cause not just?” The writer has no desire to hear a response to this “question.” Rhetorical questions thus often lead paragraphs or longer portions of a document in order to establish a topic or idea in an emphatic way: “Isn’t it curious how the caterpillar lives?” Again, no answer is expected, but our attention is focused on caterpillars and their evidently unusual patterns of life. See emphasis.
The device of rhetorical questioning to open a statement, paragraph, or whatever is somewhat clichéd—a bit tired and overused. Thus its emphatic force has been lost to some degree, and it is often seen as an obvious, mechanical, or awkward way to launch a subject. Certainly rhetorical questions, like all emphatic devices, should not be repeated frequently in the same document, paragraph, or statement. Remember that the question you did not intend anyone to answer might be responded to: “No, caterpillars aren’t curious in the least.” The reader or listener has now been lost. See cliché.
When questions are restated or reported within other sentences, they are “indirect questions”: “The interviewer asked what interests you.” These questions do not end in question marks and usually do not vary or invert word order since they are not emphasizing anything or marking themselves as questions. Indirect questions usually include verbs that suggest they are reporting a question: “ask,” “question,” “inquire,” and so on. Indirect questions are identical to other sentences in all other respects. See emphasis and order of words.
Indirect questions can strike readers as weak because they don’t precisely record what has been asked. “The interviewer asked if you are happy” is not quite as accurate or certain a version of several possible questions that might have been asked: “The interviewer asked, ‘Are you happy? Is he/she happy? Is Kim happy? Is anyone here happy?”
Question mark. The punctuation mark that indicates a direct question is called a “question mark” (?). The question mark is used straightforwardly and most often to end a direct question: “How are you?” Complications arise when question marks appear with other punctuation, especially parentheses and quotation marks.
Depending on what is being set off by the parentheses, question marks can appear inside or outside them. If the parentheses enclose a complete sentence (or more than one), any direct questions within them end with question marks that appear within the parentheses: “It was cold. (But why did the water stay liquid? Why were the ducks on the pond?) Was winter here?”
But if the parentheses set off a phrase, clause, or even a whole sentence within a direct question, the whole direct question ends with a question mark outside the parentheses: “How cold was it (ducks were on the pond, the water was still liquid)?” No period ends the sentences within the parentheses, by the way, though a question mark could have appeared within them as well if one of the parenthetical sentences was a direct question: “How cold was it (were there ducks on the pond? was it still liquid?)?” The example cries out for revision to eliminate the logjam of punctuation at its end and to give the reader a chance to follow what is going on. It would have been better to write several separate sentences as questions than to have knitted them together in this forced way.
With quotation marks the question mark can, again, appear either within them or outside them. If a direct question is being quoted (and not being restated as an indirect question), then it ends with a question mark followed by quotation marks: “is that so?” Or: “The guest asked, ‘Is that so?’” (The indirect question “The guest asked if that was so” does not end in a question mark inside or outside the quotes.)
But if quoted material appears within a direct question and does not constitute the whole question, then the question mark appears at the end of the sentence and is not followed by quotes: “Was the teacher talking about the ‘decline of the West’?” The question mark is outside the single quote that marks only words being set off for some other reason than questioning them. The question mark is within the double quotes only because that is how examples in this book are set off.
Note that a quoted direct question followed by a statement about who is asking the question ends with a quotation mark inside the quotes and no additional punctuation until the end of the whole sentence: “‘Is that so?’ the companion asked.” No comma follows the quoted question, although one would have been necessary if the example were not a question: “‘That is so,’ the companion said.”
Quotation. Like questions, quotations come in two basic kinds—direct and indirect statements attributed to someone: “‘That’s right,’ I said.” “Indeed, I said that it was exemplary.” The first example is a direct quotation, and the second is indirect. Note the differences in their punctuation and order of words and selection.
Direct quotations are surrounded by quotation marks and contain within the quotation marks ending punctuation to indicate whether the quoted statement is a demonstrative, interrogative, imperative, or other kind of sentence: “‘Make it so!’ the boss ordered.” “‘Why must I?’ the employee inquired.” “‘Because I said so,’ the boss responded.” In this exchange the first quoted sentence is an imperative that ends with an exclamation point; the next is a direct question that ends with a question mark inside the quotes; and the last quoted statement is a simple demonstrative sentence, which ends with a comma inside the quotes when a statement follows about who is making the quoted statement. If a demonstrative sentence is quoted and ends a quoted passage, it ends with a period inside the quotation marks: “The employee said, ‘I agree.’ ”
Indirect quotations restate or report statements rather than reproducing them directly: “He said that he was happy.” Indirect quotations are not set off in quotation marks (except here as an example), do not include punctuation to indicate the nature of the quoted sentence, and usually include words like “said that,” “stated that,” or something similar to mark the reporting of speech indirectly.
Like indirect questions, indirect quotations expose the writer to some suspicion from readers. What exactly did someone say as opposed to what is reported? A few indirect quotations will not arouse such suspicion, but repeated indirect quotations from the same source can create doubts about accuracy of reporting.
Quotation mark. The punctuation marks used to set off quoted speech are called “quotes” or “quotation marks”: “‘Yes,’ Bloom said.”
Simple direct quotations are surrounded by double quotes (”), while further quotes within double-quote-marked sentences use single quotes (’), as in the example. Further quotes within quotes within quotes would logically be set off by double quotes, but sentences of such complexity should rarely be imposed on readers.
Quotes are also used to mark single words, phrases, or clauses for emphasis—when they are being signaled as somehow suspect (“You call that a ‘dog’?”); when they are being treated as grammatical categories or words in themselves (“ ‘That’ is a pronoun.”); or for other emphatic purposes.
Note that other punctuation is placed before or after quote marks differently, depending on whether quotes surround fully quoted speech or emphasized words. A fully quoted sentence or fragment has all its punctuation inside the quote marks, including any ending punctuation: “Did you call the dog?” “Call the dog!” “I called the dog.” Similarly, fully quoted sentences or fragments that don’t end a sentence have all punctuation inside quotes: “‘Are you sure?’ the judge asked.” Here the whole sentence ends with a period inside the double quotes as expected, and the sentence quoted ends with a question mark inside the single quotes that set it off. When a sentence is quoted and falls before and after the identification of the speaker, the first part ends with a comma inside the quotes, and the rest ends with whatever punctuation is appropriate: “‘Your fence,’ the neighbor shouted, ‘is too high!’ ” Similarly, if two sentences from the same speaker are quoted before and after the identification, all punctuation for the quoted sentences is within the quotes: “‘Come on in!’ the host directed, ‘Get comfortable!’ ”
When quotes are used to mark words for any other purpose than as a direct quotation, then end-of-sentence question marks and exclamation points do not fall within them: “Is this supposed to be an example of ‘good writing’?” The question mark is inside the double quotes that set off the whole example but outside the single quotes that here suggest doubts or irony about the words “good writing.” Had the example ended with a period, however, it would have been inside both sets of quotation marks: “This is supposed to be ‘good writing.’ ”
Q.v. This abbreviation of the Latin words “quod vide” means “which see.” It is better in modern writing to simply say, “Please see” or “See.”