What ever happened to...
this --> ?
Where has the question mark gone? Why does it rarely appear at the end of questions that I see here in thread titles and in comments?
Honestly. It detracts from the purpose of the words present to have to reread questions several times because writers either use a period at the end of a sentence that is a question or they leave nothing at all
I realize it might be asking too much but I would welcome the return of "?" at the end of sentences or phrases that are actually questions, asking for a response.
Asking for a friend. 
| 3 votes, 1 pass | Time left: Unlimited | |
| I find it annoying too. | |
1 (33%) |
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| I notice it sometimes. | |
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| I don't use them for religious reasons. | |
1 (33%) |
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| Is this a rant | |
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| I hadn't noticed. | |
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| So that's what those are! | |
1 (33%) |
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| What | |
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| How can I tell if it's a question | |
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| I use them once every other Sunday whether I need to or not. | |
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| Question marks are like turn signals, who needs them | |
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| 1 DU member did not wish to select any of the options provided. | |
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= new reply since forum marked as read
question mark's is a minor annoyance. Its just one more nail in the coffin of good grammar. Maybe George Bernard Shaw was right:
Playwright George Bernard Shaw thought apostrophes were unnecessary and declined to use them in words like don’t, doesn’t, I’ve, that’s, and weren’t. He did use them for words like I’ll and he’ll, where the apostrophe-less version might have caused confusion. He made clear his disdain for the little marks in his Notes on the Clarendon Press Rules for Compositors and Readers, where he said, “There is not the faintest reason for persisting in the ugly and silly trick of peppering pages with these uncouth bacilli.” https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/87448/6-punctuation-marks-hated-famous-authors
And for what it's worth, Gertrude Stein hated question marks:
Stein...also objected to the question mark, finding it “positively revolting” and of all the punctuation marks “the completely most uninteresting.” There was no reason for it since “a question is a question, anybody can know that a question is a question and so why add to it the question mark when it is already there when the question is already there in the writing.” ibid
Apostrophes drive me crazy and I still haven't adapted to overlooking their misuse. I really enjoyed grammar in school early on, it's what made it possible for me to get into and through college.
Disdain for punctuation or not, it makes your point clearly to the reader(s) so that they might appreciate what you had to say in the proper light. I think of it as a form of misspelled words.
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1. posting from phones. "?" key is secondary on phone keyboards, takes two presses.
2. lazyness, don't want to use the shift key, like e. e. cummings, they type in no caps.
When I was in college I would proofread papers for some of my profs and bosses at work and I was horrified by some of them lacking even the most basic writing skills not to mention their really bad spelling.
You get the star for noticing that. 
...I added "curious".
I had a suspicion you'd try a trick!
You had it right! I was trying to illustrate the sensation for others.
