Punctuating “Guess What”

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Who’s this?

This is Ilima calling from Hawaii.

Ilima.

Ilima, welcome to the program.

Thank you so much.

I’m excited to be with you guys.

Well, what can we help you with today, Ilima?

Well, guess what?

Chicken butt.

What?

That’s my question.

What?

I had a question about the expression, guess what?

Every time I see it written, I see it written with a question mark at the end.

And that’s never made sense to me because it always seems more like an imperative than a question.

Aha, very interesting.

So if you were writing it, you would put a period and not a question mark?

Yeah, or an exclamation point.

Very interesting.

Well, let me ask you, how would you punctuate the sentence, would you please shut up?

This is a hypothetical, right?

I would punctuate that with an exclamation point, too.

An exclamation point, not a period.

I could see how it could be a question mark or a period, yeah.

Sure.

So if you say, guess what, as far as you’re concerned, it’s an order and not a query.

That’s just what it sounds like to me.

Nobody else writes it that way, and it just never looked right with a question mark to me because you’re right.

To me, it sounds like an order.

You’re telling the person to guess.

Right.

You’re not asking a question.

Right.

It sounds like there’s some words left out, like, I want you to guess what I’m thinking or something, right?

Yeah, exactly.

And you’re right.

In all of the data that I can search here, I see that people use a question mark.

Actually, in professionally edited texts, like books and newspapers, it’s almost always a question mark.

In casual stuff like blog posts and emails and discussion forum stuff, people tend to use the question mark plus the exclamation mark.

Because I think there’s a sense of a question happening, right?

But there’s a sense of something forceful being said, too, right?

Guess what?

Guess what?

You don’t say, guess what?

But you’d almost think with a question mark it’d be, guess what?

Yeah, that’s how it looks in my mind when I read it that way.

It looks like you’re saying, guess what?

And to me, you’re telling somebody else to ask a question.

And the response to guess what is, what?

And that’s the question.

There are plenty of questions that you might ask where you wouldn’t raise the inflection at the end.

Like, do you mind?

Do you mind?

No, you say, do you mind?

And there’s a little bit of a hit there, but…

Say what?

Exactly.

What?

Say what, yeah.

So there we go.

So your question is, do you use an exclamation mark or a question mark in the two-word phrase, guess what?

Yeah.

It’s a puzzle.

Well, I got to say that this question has come up before.

Some people prefer to use the Interobank.

Do you know this punctuation mark?

No.

I-N-T-E-R-R-O-B-A-N-G.

It is a single character that combines the question mark and the exclamation mark into one.

And it’s common enough that it actually appears in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary in one of their tables of punctuation.

It’s never really caught on, although once in a while you’ll find it on the keyboard of an old typewriter.

I was going to say, it’s taking me back to when I used to make those with the backspace and everything.

Yeah, you could make them in a typewriter in a way that you can’t easily do on a computer.

Right.

Although it is now a standard part of the Unicode font set, so you can actually call it up if you know how and use it.

But who’s going to use it?

But it’s not a part of formal writing.

No.

It’s like any copy editor worth his or her salt would just strike that mark right out of it and replace it probably with a question mark.

With a question mark?

Yeah.

But it is weird.

I understand what she’s saying.

There is an alternative here.

Oh, there is?

Yeah.

Did you ever hear the fellow Ted Bernstein?

He was a language commentator in the 1960s and 1970s, wrote a few books.

He’s long since passed, but he used to be a managing editor for the New York Times.

He invented a character called the Pronequark.

What?

P-R-O-N-E-Q-U-A-R-K, the Pronequark.

And it never really caught on.

I guess not.

But it solves the problem.

It’s a question mark lying on its side.

A dead question mark?

So it’s kind of face down with the hump pointed up.

And he says that you should use this on expressions like, would you please shut up?

Because it’s really an order, not a question.

Right?

Right.

If I say, would you please shut up?

I really mean, shut up.

And if I say, guess what?

It means, I don’t really care if you guess.

I’m about to tell you something that I find to be significant.

Right?

Yeah.

And so he suggests you should use the prone quark.

What do you think?

Are you advocating this, Grant?

I’m just thinking.

No, I’m just offering this an opportunity to confuse and muddle things.

So if I muddle this, then my job is done.

A muddle opportunity.

I don’t know.

Does it appeal to you, Ilima?

I’m definitely going to bring back the prone quark.

But to summarize this, if you’re writing professionally and formally for business or for, you know, something that’s going to be printed and read by a lot of people, you should go with the question mark.

Otherwise, have a ball and put the exclamation mark there.

Let people know that it’s an exciting moment for you and that there’s not really a question implied.

And really what you’re saying is, I’m about to tell you something that I think is important.

So that’s my advice.

Great.

Does that work?

That’s terrific.

Until we bring back the prone quark, I’ll get used to seeing it with a question mark.

Yeah, if you Google the prone quark, look for the fellow.

His name is Theodore Bernstein, Theodore M. Bernstein, and you’ll find a little bit of information about him, his books, and the prone quark.

Terrific.

Thank you so much.

Super duper.

Thanks for calling.

Mahalo.

Mahalo.

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