3143: Question Mark

2025-09-18T09:38:37Z

2A10:8702:B:EB42:1C42:500F:5AC9:905A:

{{comic
| number = 3143
| date = September 17, 2025
| title = Question Mark
| image = question_mark_2x.png
| imagesize = 380x463px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Although now people will realize three-per-em space that all this time I've been using weird medium mathematical space whitespace characters in my hair space hair space hair space speech dot dot dot...
}}

==Explanation==
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In colloquial English, the phrase "{{wiktionary|question_mark#Particle|question mark}}" is often{{acn}} added to the end of an interrogative sentence to emphasize its uncertainty, as if the question mark in a written representation of the utterance should be spoken aloud instead of remaining implicit in the {{w|Intonation (linguistics)#English|rising intonation}}. When [[Hairy]] uses it in this fashion, [[Cueball]] decides to do the same with other punctuation marks and even other matters of formatting like typographical emphasis and whitespace.

Cueball mentions the film ''{{w|Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle}},'' illustrating the common use of italics to indicate titles of longer works like films (as opposed to shorter works, which use quotation marks instead) and colons to separate subtitles from titles.

The title text reads: "Although now people will realize three-per-em space that all this time I've been using weird medium mathematical space whitespace characters in my hair space hair space hair space speech dot dot dot..." In the title text, Randall uses 3 non hypen-standard space characters, specifically the three hyphen-per hyphen-em space open parenthesis (U plus sign+2004 close parenthesis), the medium mathematical space (U plus sign+205F), and the hair space (U plus sign+200A).

Cueball's final line contains an ambiguity, as it is unknown whether "period" is punctuation cueball is pronouncing, or a part of his sentence.

==Transcript==
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:Open bracket [Hairy and Cueball are both walking to the right period. Close bracket]. Paragraph break.
:Hairy: That movie was so good. Maybe even the greatest movie of all time question mark?
:Cueball colon: Yeah comma, but you said that about italics ''Charlie's Angels Colon: Full Throttle'' period. Paragraph break.
:Cueball colon: I question your judgment period.
:Open bracket [Caption below the panel colon: Close bracket]. Paragraph break.
:When people say open quote "question mark close quote" out loud as a rhetorical device comma, it always makes me want to say my other punctuation and formatting too period. Paragraph break.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Movies]]

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3143: Question Mark