Editing 3143: Question Mark

{{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==
{{incomplete|This page was created by a BOT TIRONIAN ET ⹒ MULTIPLE HUMANS PERIOD. Don apostrophe 't remove this notice too soon period.}}

In colloquial English, the phrase "{{wiktionary|question_mark#Particle|question mark}}" is sometimes added to the end of a statement to give an exaggerated or emphasized impression of 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}}. This may be to reinforce true questions in dialects that exhibit a {{w|high rising terminal}} even for normal statements, to signal that a sentence is meant to be interrogative despite not following the typical structure of a question, or even just for effect. Here, the phrase “[it is] maybe even the greatest movie of all time” is structured like a standard declaration of fact, and so verbalizing the question mark helps clarify that the statement is made in order to request a (hoped for) confirmation, or at least acquiescence.

Saying "question mark" appears to be a relatively new phenomenon, at least in terms of gaining meaningful adoption, and such linguistic novelties can often cause irritation or discomfort among those outside of their usage groups. When [[Hairy]] does this, [[Cueball]] feels compelled to respond by doing the same with other punctuation marks, and even other matters of formatting, such as typographical emphasis, a paragraph break, and whitespace. Whether he does this to try to fit in, or as a form of 'revenge' for a perceived linguistic abuse, is unclear.

Generally, speaking punctuation and formatting out loud is considered strange, though there are some forms of it that are accepted, and it is possible that the same will become true of "question mark" over time. Sometimes the word "period" (US English) or "full-stop" (British, Irish and Commonwealth English) is spoken or written as a syntactic tail to the end of a sentence, just before the nominally unspoken punctuation of the same name (although often more in the context of an exclamation), to declare that there can be no dispute nor further discussion about what is being stated. An example might be, "That's the end of the matter. We're leaving Friday, period." Other examples would be "asterisk", indicating the statement is not absolute and has caveats, such as "You should buy a ticket and see that movie - asterisk [it's kind of expensive though]", while a feeling of incompleteness or foreboding is sometimes evoked by speaking the phrase "dot dot dot" at the end of a sentence, reflecting the use of an ellipsis to indicate an ominous unwritten continuation.

Cueball mentions the film ''{{w|Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle}},'' illustrating the common use of italics to indicate titles of films (as well as other works, including books, albums and series, depending on the stylebook used) and colons to separate subtitles from titles. From the context, Hairy and Cueball had strong but opposite opinions about the merits of this film.

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...". Randall uses, and {{tvtropes|ReadingTheStageDirectionsOutLoud|vocalizes}}, three different whitespace characters in this statement. Specifically, the three-per-em space (U+2004), the medium mathematical space (U+205F), and the hair space (U+200A). Normally they'd be used for typesetting mathematical formulae and in {{w|microtypography}}, without any expected audible distinction or meaning beyond text-placement and alignment in printed media. The three spaces are all pretty close in width to ordinary inter-word white space, making it unlikely anyone would notice them without Randall explicitly naming them in the text.

Translated, it looks like:
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Characters in title text
| "<span style='white-space: break-spaces;'>Although now people will realize<span style='background-color:#808080;'>&#x2004;</span>that all this time I’ve been using weird<span style='background-color:#808080;'>&#x205f;</span>whitespace characters in my<span style='background-color:#444;'>&#x200a;</span><span style='background-color:#aaa;'>&#x200a;</span><span style='background-color:#444;'>&#x200a;</span>speech...</span>"
|-
! Ordinary whitespace
| "<span style='white-space: break-spaces;'>Although now people will realize<span style='background-color:#808080;'> </span>that all this time I’ve been using weird<span style='background-color:#808080;'> </span>whitespace characters in my<span style='background-color:#808080;'> </span>speech...</span>"
|}

Pronouncing punctuation used to be a staple of {{w|Dictation (exercise)|dictation}}, especially in the 20th century, when secretaries taking dictation to type letters were more commonplace. The expression "…, {{wiktionary|period#Interjection|period}}" or "…, {{wiktionary|full stop#Interjection|full stop}}", taken to mean "…and that's final", originates from this usage.{{acn}} Since Cueball is pronouncing all other punctuation marks as well, his final "period" denotes only the mark and not the common expression, especially since the latter would usually require mention of the comma before and then an ''additional'' spoken "period" after. Dictated punctuation is still used today in some software that supports {{w|speech recognition}} for text entry, such as [https://cloud.google.com/speech-to-text/docs/spoken-punctuation Google Docs] and many smartphone keyboards' text-to-speech functions, so a person can send a text message with the precise punctuation intended.

The Kooblen, in Phil Foglio's <i>Buck Godot</i> setting, [https://web.archive.org/web/20150428205448/http://www.airshipentertainment.com/buckcomic.php?date=20070125 speak in this way] to express punctuation.

See (and hear) also Victor Borge's [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIf3IfHCoiE "Phonetic Punctuation"] sketch in its various forms, in which a variety of vocal sounds are used to make punctuation explicit.

==Transcript==


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

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