I’ve seen a number of posts lately like “How to get yadda yadda yadda” but when you click, the content is actually a question about the subject line, which sucks.
If you’re posting a question, please make it look like a question. It’s EASY… Just put a QUESTION MARK at the end of your subject line. It looks like this:
?
We’re pirates here, not fucking savages.
I can forgive the incorrect “How to get blah?” sentence formation, but leaving out a question mark (which are common across many languages) makes it look like purposeful clickbait.
I cannot forgive that. English is not a language that allows you to turn a statement into a question just by changing punctuation. This is covered in like day one: “What is your name?”
If you learned English through media and not formal classes, you have even less excuse, because then you should be learning how people talk in the real world, not just formal classroom English.
It’s actually pretty common to change a sentence into a question with rising intonation in speech, which is pretty much just adding a question mark.
“Fries.” is a statement of what something is or what someone wants. “Fries?” is asking if someone wants fries.
“I said that.” is a statement about something someone said. “I said that?” is a question about whether they said something.
Of course, we could add emphasis to any of those three words and end up with 3 different questions.
“I said that?” … No, I guess it was your partner, not you.
“I said that?” … Well, you sure IMPLIED it!
“I said that?” … Yes, verbatim. It’s even in the video from last night.
All from changing a “.” to a “?” in the sentence “I said that.”.