I like the prefix marks. I wish we used them for all of our punctuation. They improve readability. Imagine if we removed the leading double-quote on our quoted lines.
this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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As a latin American myself, I never considered that. As a programmer, I completely back that up.
.I feel like this analogy doesn't entirely work because you always know where the question starts, as that's where the sentence startS. ,And a sentence always starts where the one before ends, ¿righT? .However I still see why you say it improves readabilitY. ¡I'm sure my comment is very readable right noW!
I don't mind the prefixed punctuation at all and don't think it hurts readability in the slightest.
Your inexplicable decision to capitalize the final letters is awful though, and definitely makes it less readable.
lol noted, I was just goofing around
lol yeah I guess it depends on the length of the sentence and the context. Context is usually pretty clear for questions, and maybe exclamations are typically short enough that the '!' is already visible anyways. Definitely wasn't considering periods and commas in that list.
.I feel like this analogy doesn’t entirely work because you always know where the question starts, as that’s where the sentence startS.
Not always. For example (translated):
And you, ¿how are you?
You could write that as "And you? How are you?" so both parts of that sentence are still a question.
However there are other examples where you're right: ",That's not going to happen, ¿or is it?"
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Statement: Perhaps HK-47's programmers had the right idea.
Thoughtful: The Elcor's manner of speech from Mass Effect would be particularly useful when communicating through text as well.
Approving: Indeed
Sarcastic: Indeed.
Wow. So that's how you can actually do sarcasm on the interwebs!
100%
So… Spanish people aren’t normal people?
If someone defied gravity when confused, I’d feel pretty comfortable saying that wasn’t normal, regardless of race.
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op wasn't expecting an inquisition.
Nope.
Definitely not. Haven't you met one before?
Yeah, I never got the upside-down questionmark as well 😂.
In Spanish questions are phrased the same way as affirmations, when you are speaking the only difference is the intonation. Without a mark to say you are starting to read a question it's possible that the meaning changes in the end which would be annoying. (Source: Portuguese is the same but has no inverted question mark, and sometimes it's mighty annoying, especially with long questions)
Funny enough English does this all the time:
- That's food.
- That's food!
- That's food?
- That's food?!
- That's food...
All have different intonations and punctuation but are otherwise the same. Internet lingo does compensate for this somewhat but at least in "proper" form the above holds true for all kinds of situations
1 Food that is edible
2 Tasty food
3 Bad looking food
4 Either happy or disgusted at what was just in your mouth
5 Defending your cooking after it’s referred to as 1-4
Imagine if you could ask questions like "James, Mary, and Jack went to the market last Saturday to buy a shovel, a black bag, and some gloves, to bury Karen's corpse in the deep dark woods?"
No no no, James, Mary, and Jack went to the market last Saturday to buy a shovel, a black bag, and some flashlights, to bury Karen's corpse in the deep dark woods
English can do that too, but it’s not really a “proper” way of doing it. The proper way would be to say “is that food?”
There are languages where the only way to pose a question is to change the intonation.
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Portuguese is the same but has no inverted question mark, and sometimes it's mighty annoying,
¿What if you just used them anyway?
¡Problem solved!
Yeah that's true for any language really
Not really. In my language subject and verb get switched around in a question. So you immediately know it’s a question when you start reading the sentence.
Can you give me an example?
Edit: Ok thanks guys, I got it :D
Maybe
- I do like cats
- Do I like cats?
but taken to the extreme?
Can you give me an example - Question
You can give me an example - Affirmation
-
Hij schreef een bericht. (He wrote a message)
-
Schreef hij een bericht? (Did he wrote a message?)
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It's so you can start reading a sentence in the correct intonation
This can’t be right. It’s far too simple and logical. I’m a native English speaker, and I’m used to grammar that’s nonsensical and inconsistent.
In spanish questions intonation changes occur only on the last word(s), not the whole sentence. I'm not a linguistic, but I think it's so you can be sure a sentence is a question from the start.
When reading english sometimes I assume a sentence is an affirmation until I see the question mark, and then I have to reinterpret the sentence. I wonder how it is for native english speakers. Do they assume nothing until the sentence is finished?
You are indeed right, my explanation was poor. But for other languages it is very common to get surprised at the end of sentences, yes.
In English most questions stay flat and only raises the pitch on the last syllable, if any. In Spanish we can raise the pitch on the first word and stay flat for the rest of the question. That's what's useful about the ¿
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In spanish questions intonation changes occur only on the last word(s), not the whole sentence. I'm not a linguistic, but I think it's so you can be sure a sentence is a question from the start.
That might be the case in the dialect you're familiar with, but "¿Me dijiste que no te moleste?" has a different intonation to "Me dijiste que no te moleste." in my Spanish (starting from "dijiste").
As for English, questions normally start either with a question word or a (auxiliary) verb, while affirmations normally start with the subject. See "You told me not to bother you." vs. "Did you tell me not to bother you?". Using just intonation is possible ("You told me not to bother you?!??"), but when in writing, it's usually formatted in a way that highlights it because it usually indicates outrage/disbelief.
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(Latin American fellow) At first I thought this was an Australia-style joke, because there are Spanish speaking countries in both hemispheres. Yep, I can overthink stuff and still be an idiot lol
🙃 me gusta ☺️
¿Dónde está la gracia?
El perro está en la biblioteca.
!No corren en el hospital cabrones¡
También no mueran en el hospital, cabrones.
Con amor, una enfermera
To be fair that rule is almost lost, only the autocorrect still adds the initial ?
In informal text perhaps, but in publications and such it's still used.
Just like how in Dutch the second quotation mark is supposed to be on the bottom. But I don't even know how to do that on the computer.
Also in German. Word autocorrects that for example.
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