Grammar
Depending on the context, a rhetorical question may be punctuated by a question mark (?), full stop (.), or exclamation mark (!), but it is generally best to use a question mark for any question, rhetorical or not.
Rhetorical questions may be signaled by marker phrases; questions that include "after all", or "by any chance" may be intended as rhetorical.
Written lists of rhetorical questions within a sentence require question marks, but do not require quotation marks. "Would he? Could he? Should he? she asked."
In the 1580s, English printer Henry Denham invented a "rhetorical question mark" for use at the end of a rhetorical question; however, it died out of use in the 17th century. It was the reverse of an ordinary question mark, so that instead of the main opening pointing back into the sentence, it opened away from it.
Read more about this topic: Rhetorical Question
Famous quotes containing the word grammar:
“The new grammar of race is constructed in a way that George Orwell would have appreciated, because its rules make some ideas impossible to express—unless, of course, one wants to be called a racist.”
—Stephen Carter (b. 1954)
“The syntactic component of a grammar must specify, for each sentence, a deep structure that determines its semantic interpretation and a surface structure that determines its phonetic interpretation.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“The old saying of Buffon’s that style is the man himself is as near the truth as we can get—but then most men mistake grammar for style, as they mistake correct spelling for words or schooling for education.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)