Questions, Statements, and Punctuation

Today is a grammar lesson.  Let's start with the obvious.

Sentences are either statements, questions, or exclamations.  For the purposes of this post, I only care about statements and questions.  Statements end with periods and questions with question marks.  A statement is a fact or opinion.  A question actively asks for information.  Now that the obvious is over, let's proceed.

In polite society, we are trained to be anything but direct.  We think it is rude or antagonizing, so we beat around the bush, hoping that the other person will volunteer information.  This leads to openers like, "I'd like to know. . ." or "I was wondering. . .".  While there is nothing wrong with speaking like that, you should know that it can change the classification of your sentence.

"I'd like to know your name" is a statement.  You are declaring your desire.  You are not actively asking for the person's name.  That means that it must end with a period.

However, you cannot assume that these openers are always statements.  "I'd like to know, what is your name?"  This is a direct question, thus needing a question mark.  That opener is simply explaining why the speaker is asking the question.


It is best to never blindly punctuate.  Sure, you know the basics, and ambiguous sentences are certainly a rarity, but that's no excuse.  If you don't actually stop to think about what you're doing, what you're saying, and all those other little nitty gritty parts of writing, how can you ever actually know what you're doing?