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When is it appropriate to end a question without a question mark?

I have heard so many times people use two way of asking question? Is there any way to ask question where you will not find the question but a sentence to ask question?

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Huh? A question without a question? –  simchona Jan 7 '13 at 6:56
Questions normally require question marks. It's possible to create a dialogue in which a question's asked without actually phrasing it as a question but as an answer; eg, A: My philosophy teacher asked if I would sleep with her for $1000. B: And you, of course, said "Absolutely!" Speaker B is either making an assumption that A agreed or implicitly asking A to answer the unstated question: And what did you say? Why would B not ask? Because B wants to project confidence that he or she knows A well enough to know what A would say. The question mark isn't there but implied. Not normal. –  user21497 Jan 7 '13 at 7:05
I'm not happy the way you asked that question. ;) –  Kris Jan 7 '13 at 8:28
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marked as duplicate by Jim, Carlo_R., tchrist, Matt Эллен, Andrew Leach Jan 7 '13 at 9:27


1 Answer

English requires direct questions be followed by a question mark. However, there are many ways you can solicit information without asking a question, and then a question mark isn't used because a direct question wasn't asked. For example:

What is the weather like?
I wonder what the weather is like.

What time is it?
I wish I knew what time it was.

How much does that cost?
I'd like to know how much that costs.

What is it?
Please tell me what it is.

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