What's wrong?
Who knows?
What's wrong?
Don't ask.
But I did just ask you. How can I not do something when I have already done it? That's like saying "don't cook me any dinner" when dinner is already on the table. To repeat the question, therefore: what's wrong?
You don't want to know
If I didn't want to know then why would I ask? Clearly I want to know what is wrong and so I asked the necessary question to get to the bottom of it. The question in question being "what's wrong?"
Is that a question or a statement of what the question is?
It is both. If you are reading this then it would be a statement of what the question is, the question being - as I stated before - "what's wrong?" If, however, we are talking to each other then it would be much more difficult for you to to determine whether the question was a statement of what the question is or simply just the question itself.
How would I determine which is the correct case?
It would depend on whether you are reading this or we are talking to each other.
Let us say that I am talking to you: how would I infer that you asked a question as opposed to made a statement?
I suppose I would have incorporated an inflection into the structure of my sentence to ensure that the words I was using to communicate with you resembled the accepted form of a question.
Am I to presume, then, that even if we were talking to each other, there would still be some confusion concerning the particular arrangement of words we are now discussing depending on whether or not you used the technique of inflection at the end of the sentence?
Yes, I suppose you are to presume that.
And so having determined the possibility that we may be talking to each other (above the alternative that we may be conversing through the written word), we are yet to discover whether your question was indeed a question or, in fact, a statement of what the question was.
Yes, that sounds to be about the measure of it.
So which was it: a question or a statement of the question, the question in question being, you will recall, "what's wrong?"?
Don't ask.
You can't answer like that, for three reasons: 1) I had already asked the question and so cannot withdraw it upon your request after the event to do so. I believe you have already explained the logic behind such a response yourself quite recently; 2) the question I posed was a question concerning your original question, the answer to which is the choice between your question either being a statement of the question or the question itself. To answer with an answer that is only appropriate to the question which was posed to me by you is actually quite inappropriate and will only serve to confuse matters more than they already are; 3) there is no third point, only that it is better to have three points than two.
Well then you do have three points, because your third point is clearly "it is better to have three points that two". There is no source that stipulates what a point needs to be in order to be considered a 'point' and so I think your third point will do very well for being a third point. None of which helps me with my original question, which for purposes of clarity I will pose again: what's wrong?
Nothing
Then why didn't you say so and saved you and me a lot of bother in the process?
I don't know. I think I just enjoy the company.
arbitrary constant - a small electronic repository for film, literature, mathematics and other areas of interest since 2003
Site navigation
Text widgets
Choose your preferred size and justification of text:
Click on any of the above buttons to make your choice.
This page last updated: 03.09.04