What's up with the latest trend in business emails these days to put a question mark after something when you are making a statement? People, when you start a sentence with "I think", whether or not you're sure about the veracity of what you're thinking about, you end the sentence with a period, NOT a question mark. Otherwise you are questioning your own ability to think. And so am I.
This rant brought to you courtesy of eVil corporation, and my fine colleagues herein. Thank you, and have a nice day.
It has been my experience that the question mark is a way of saying "don't you think?" or "do you understand?" It invites your feedback to the contrary, as opposed to the declarative statement. While not correct puncuation, an example of expediency in the workplace?
Posted by: peg | 2004.08.25 at 09:28
Well, since you ended your last sentence inappropriately with a question mark, I assume you're inviting feedback from me ;-)
I think these sorts of business-speak short cuts are fine for interoffice emails, but when you are writing something to a client, it had better be done correctly.
I'm not sure why the business vernacular annoys me so much, when other variations from standard English strike me as fun, or playful, or colorful, but they just do. I guess I feel like people here are educated and know better, but they're just lazy.
Posted by: nina | 2004.08.25 at 10:08
So, it is ok to be ignorant, but not lazy? Two errors above are intentional.
Posted by: anita | 2004.08.25 at 10:24
Oh, lordy, am I making punctuation errors on my punctuation rant? That would be god's way ('god' and 'lordy' intentionally left uncapitalized)of telling me to blog about more interesting things and to take the log out of my own eye, etc. Point 'em out to me fer crissake! I do welcome corrections when I make typos or errors on the blog. For the most part, I try to write correctly here. Of course I have my own little idiosyncrasies, like using foto for photo, etc., and I like to think most of my errors are typos, but I am not infallible in that area. Karen at Verbatim is the true grammar queen, I'm just a wannabe.
And well, (paragraph and sentence beginning with 'and' used as poetic license)that's the joy of having a blog, you can do with it as you will--even expose your own hypocrisies.
Posted by: nina | 2004.08.25 at 11:02
PS I think I should get back to work now?
Posted by: nina | 2004.08.25 at 11:05
Au contraire! I was referring to my 2 errors. Starting a sentence with "So," is not entirely accepted. In addition, I was guilty of the very act you decried by adding a question mark at the end of a declarative statement...guess my transgressions were subtle.
Posted by: anita | 2004.08.25 at 11:32
Well, starting your sentence with "so" is conversational, and the comments count as conversational in my book. My dyslexic self though you wrote "is it" instead of "it is", so, I thought your question mark was appropriate. That's what I get for blogging at work and not properly focusing on either.
Posted by: nina | 2004.08.25 at 11:43