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A 'rhetorical question' is a figure of speech in the form of a question posed for rhetorical effect rather than to receive an answer. Rhetorical questions encourage the listener to reflect on what the implied answer to the question must be. When a speaker declaims, ''"How much longer must our people endure this injustice?"'' or ''"Will our company grow or shrink?"'', or ''"How many times do I have to tell you to stop walking into the house with mud on your shoes?"''; no formal answer is expected. Rather, it is a device used by the speaker to assert or deny something.

Contents

Punctuation

Examples

Notes

See also

External links

Punctuation

A rhetorical question typically ends in a question mark (?), but occasionally may end with an exclamation mark (!) or even a period (.) according to some writing style guides. For example:

★ "What's the point of going on."

★ "Isn't that ironic!"
In the 1580s, English printer Henry Denham invented a "rhetorical question mark" for use at the end of a rhetorical question; however, it died out of use in the 1600s. It was the reverse of an ordinary question mark, so that instead of the main opening pointing back into the sentence, it opened away from it.^[1]
Some have adapted the question mark into various irony marks, but these are very rarely seen.

Examples

★ "How can people have hope when we tell them that they have no recourse, if they run afoul of the state justice system?" Edward Kennedy, ''Senate debate on the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act'', 1968.

★ "Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?" William Shakespeare's ''Julius Caesar'', Act 3, scene 2.
Some rhetorical questions become idiomatic English expressions:

★ "What's the matter with you?"

★ "Don't you know any better?"

★ "Have you no shame?"

★ "Right?!"

★ "What the hell?"

★ "Do pigs fly?"/"Do fish swim?"/"Can fish drown?"

★ "Are you crazy?"

★ "Who cares?"

★ "How should I know?"

★ "Are you kidding me?"

★ "Isn't that nice?"

★ "But who's counting?"
Some TV shows have had rhetorical questions as titles, such as ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'' and ''Whose Line Is It Anyway?''.
Bob Dylan's song "Blowin' in the Wind" contains a series of rhetorical questions. This is spoofed in an episode of ''The Simpsons'', in which Homer attempts to quantitatively answer "How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?"
On the BBC comedy quiz show QI, host Stephen Fry once asked panellist Alan Davies, "Is this a rhetorical question?" to which Davies correctly answered "No".

Notes

1. Truss, Lynne. ''Eats, Shoots & Leaves'', 2003. p. 142. ISBN 1-592-40087-6.

See also

★ Aporia

★ Figure of speech

★ Hypothetical question

★ Question

★ Humane Systems Design Blog: "Types of Questions"

External links

★ What is a rhetorical question?

★ Audio illustrations of the rhetorical question

★ A short definition of the term