It helps the reader to recognise that it is, in fact, a question Questions, rhetorical or otherwise, need to sound like questions, or look like questions. Anyway my original question wasn't does it exist or not but who would use it and/or why But of course there's no point in that question if this idiom sounds odd to all natives, right This was an answer to tim's post I hadn't yet seen yours, daviesri.
In a rhetorical question, there is the assumption that both the asker and the addressee know the answer and both understand that they don't need to state the obvious (the answer) This takes us to you to your point about context. Hi akuptsov.hse, if we accept the longman definition of a rhetorical question A question that you ask as a way of making a statement, without expecting an answer, then i don't agree at all that tag questions are rhetorical In fact, by adding a tag, the speaker invites a response. Well, tell me about it is a rhetorical statement, not a question
The speaker is asking the addressee to tell him about something, but the intended meaning is exactly the. This question has been debated here Does a rhetorical question require a question mark The consensus is yes it needs the question mark to show that it is question, rather than an assertion. This is a jocular rhetorical question often asked in response to someone's dumb question Joe's best buddy asks him with a grin
Joe, will you be watching the game tonight? joe retorts What if you are addressing a group of people Don't you say who care Yes, boozer's example is a good one when who care is used in a sentence, that makes sense because it's in a sentence When you use it as a question, who is always, like mentioned above, the subject of the sentence is singular. A rhetorical question makes a point and does not expect an answer
A rhetorical question doesn't have an answer A question and answer pair of sentences is not a rhetorical question Your first sentence is a rhetorical question Why would any progressive country want to eliminate the english language? it is a why question, so an answer would start with because But there isn't an answer.
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