I need a new punctuation mark.
- Thread starter Alcom1
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No offense, but I think the problem might be more with your grammar than English punctuation marks. There are multiple ways you could restructure that sentence, without multiple uses of question marks (which don't need to end every singular question you ask).
Just as an example (likely a poor one, but who cares):
Just as an example (likely a poor one, but who cares):
I think you need to improve your sentence structure. What you describe sounds messy, unnecessarily complicated and open to interpretation as to meaning.Alcom1 said:
http://grammar.about.com/
I get what the OP means. It'd be useful for lists where you want to signify the thing you're talking about.
In standard English: "Can I get a bird on wheels, flying frogs, stopping watches, and participating retailers?"
The problem with that sentence is that present-tense verbs are used to describe nouns sometimes, so it can make the sentence confusing as to whether the bird on wheels is physically flying frogs somewhere, or if they're just one component in the list.
With the new thing: "Can I get a bird on wheels?, flying frogs?, stopping watches?, and participating retailers?"
That way it makes them clearly separate and unrelated to one another.
In standard English: "Can I get a bird on wheels, flying frogs, stopping watches, and participating retailers?"
The problem with that sentence is that present-tense verbs are used to describe nouns sometimes, so it can make the sentence confusing as to whether the bird on wheels is physically flying frogs somewhere, or if they're just one component in the list.
With the new thing: "Can I get a bird on wheels?, flying frogs?, stopping watches?, and participating retailers?"
That way it makes them clearly separate and unrelated to one another.
It would be a lot easier to break your sentences up for example:Alcom1 said:
"Can I have a question mark with a comma instead of a period? Or possibly a different mark serving this role? Because I often stack separate questions within the same sentence, or add reasoning for that question after a conjunction."
No need for another punctuation mark that will inevitably be severely misused and abused (look what people do to the poor apostrophe).
Other than the confusing wording of stopping watches (instead of stopwatches, I assume) and the lack of context with the "participating retailers" the list is not that hard to understand. With only a few simple changes (other than punctuation) I can easily clear up the confusion in the sentence.Norithics said:
"Can I get a bird on wheels, some flying frogs, stopwatches and a list of participating retailers?" Changes marked in bold.
It's not really necessary.
You wouldn't say "Do you want tea?, or coffee?". Adding the extra question marks doesn't say anything that isn't already unambiguously communicated by word order. For instance in the sentence "Would John like tea or coffee?", you wouldn't think you were being offered tea, coffee or John.
I would just stick a question mark on the end of your entire sentence. Strictly speaking, using 'because' to join your two clauses is not Standard English which is why that option might look a little odd.
'Because' is a subordinating conjunction which is used to link a dependent clause and an independent clause. Since both "Can I have a question mark with a comma instead of a period?, or possibly a different mark serving this role?"
and
"I often stack separate questions within the same sentence, or add reasoning for that question after a conjunction."
can stand alone as a sentence neither are dependent clauses.
It's still perfectly understandable if a little awkward sounding, so I see no problem using such sentences informally. Adding extra punctuation wouldn't provide any new information or affect the reading though.
You wouldn't say "Do you want tea?, or coffee?". Adding the extra question marks doesn't say anything that isn't already unambiguously communicated by word order. For instance in the sentence "Would John like tea or coffee?", you wouldn't think you were being offered tea, coffee or John.
I would just stick a question mark on the end of your entire sentence. Strictly speaking, using 'because' to join your two clauses is not Standard English which is why that option might look a little odd.
'Because' is a subordinating conjunction which is used to link a dependent clause and an independent clause. Since both "Can I have a question mark with a comma instead of a period?, or possibly a different mark serving this role?"
and
"I often stack separate questions within the same sentence, or add reasoning for that question after a conjunction."
can stand alone as a sentence neither are dependent clauses.
It's still perfectly understandable if a little awkward sounding, so I see no problem using such sentences informally. Adding extra punctuation wouldn't provide any new information or affect the reading though.
Yeah there is potential ambiguity but it's not solved by the question comma. What you've done with question commas is the same as what's done with regular commas.Norithics said:
If you were to write "a bird on wheels flying frogs" that would mean that the bird on wheels is flying frogs whereas "a bird on wheels, flying frogs" is the start of a list that contains a bird on wheels and flying frogs.
The ambiguity arises when you remove the first comma:
"A bird on wheels flying frogs, stopping watches and participating retailers"
Is the bird flying the frogs, stopping the watches and participating the(?) retailers?
OR is there a bird on wheels flying frogs, some stopping watches and some participating retailers?
When you replace the commas with question commas though:
"Is that a bird on wheels flying frogs?, stopping watches,? and participating retailers?
Still ambiguous. Much better off adding determiners like twistedmic suggested, or rephrasing the sentence.
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The fact that there's a comma between "wheels" and "flying" already shows them to be separate things. If they were together you wouldn't put a comma there. The only way you could misinterpret that would be in speech, where different punctuation won't help.Norithics said:
We don't need a questioncomma. Instead we need an expleriod. It is what it sounds like: an explosion in place of a period. Mr. Torgue is a genius.