0

Context: there is a war going on. Actual use:

A difficult winter is heading their way. But Jonas means to change all that. He finds himself wondering how will history remember this day.

MS Word recommends how history will. Google search shows 98k results for how will history, 180k results for how history will.

EDIT: After more thought, I realized that even though I wrote this intending the intonation to be a question, I have not added the question mark, hence the problem. With a question mark and a proper separation of clauses in the phrase (i.e. a colon), Word doesn't complain anymore.

Bottom line: how history will is more common.

My writing style favors inversion. Even in speech I would prefer to say "how will history". It just makes a lot more sense to me. I have no idea why :).

The question? Why are these two forms both so popular? Is there a recommendation when writing literature as opposed to news articles or legalese?

Axonn
  • 927
  • 1
    Those are not interchangeable. It's not a question of style. Inversion is mandatory in some cases and forbidden in others. It's impossible to answer the question you've asked because you haven't given enough context. – tchrist Apr 08 '17 at 13:21
  • 1
    Two things: First, forget Word's grammar checker. Software is not yet at a point not where it can be relied upon for grammatical analysis or advice (also, it's probably analyzing one or the other as passive, and trying to enforce the obsolete notion that the passive is to be avoided at all costs, as "meek or weasely language"). Second, to answer your question, we need examples of the contexts in which you'd like to use one construction or the other. There is no general law which applies universally and says one is superior to the other, especially not if you are asking us to consider genre. – Dan Bron Apr 08 '17 at 13:23
  • Context has now been provided :). – Axonn Apr 08 '17 at 13:23
  • 1
    What you have written is not grammatical. In this case, the program is right. – tchrist Apr 08 '17 at 13:38
  • 2
    @tchrist Change the period to a question mark. Now is it grammatical? If so, ask yourself if changing the sentence-ending punctuation mark in writing or changing tone in speech (in English) can change grammaticality of an utterance. – Dan Bron Apr 08 '17 at 13:50
  • If I change it to a question mark, Word will suggest to change it back. I'm not putting too much thought into what Word says, but I do see it as a sort of "smell". Word will not complain if I change the sentence to: "He finds himself wondering: how will history remember this day? " - this makes because it breaks the sentence in two: telling about he character and then the actual question that the character is asking. I guess software requires this to be spelled out. For a reader, perhaps italicizing the text may be enough. Problem is that I know italics &colons are not seen well in literature. – Axonn Apr 08 '17 at 13:58
  • It's an indirect question. So the word order should be wondering how history will remember.... Of course, if you are writing "literature", you can use any word order you want. – Arm the good guys in America Apr 08 '17 at 14:07
  • 3
    What do you mean that "italics & colons are not seen well in literature."? I think this is wrong. If *used properly*, italics and colons are perfectly fine in literature. – Peter Shor Apr 08 '17 at 14:07
  • @PeterShor or was it the semicolon that it's not seen well :). Let me put it this way: the use of certain formatting increases the risk of the author being accused of improper use. I'd like to offer less rope for critics to hang me with. Perhaps I'm paranoid because I'm not a native English speaker :). – Axonn Apr 08 '17 at 14:11
  • 1
    I think the dash and parentheses are the only punctuation marks that might not be seen well. Somebody told you a bunch of nonsense (as is all too common). Don't believe it. – Peter Shor Apr 08 '17 at 14:13
  • @PeterShor I'm open to change :). You mean the dash that I often seen used instead of isolating a clause between comas - like this - in many places? I thought that's quite well seen... I need to read an updated manual of style. Any recommendations? :) – Axonn Apr 08 '17 at 14:16
  • 1
    I think the dash is perfectly fine. But I believe there are people who recommend against it. For example. – Peter Shor Apr 08 '17 at 14:17
  • 2
    @PeterShor I was going to upvote your comment about poorly-received punctuation marks, but then I saw you used parentheses, so now I can't trust you at all ;) – Dan Bron Apr 08 '17 at 14:35
  • 1
    @Axonn Regarding your comment about colons or semicolons "not seen well": all punctuations marks have their place. Use them well, and you should get few complaints. – Lawrence Apr 08 '17 at 14:37
  • Duplicate of at least one of: http://english.stackexchange.com/q/16791 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/50006 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/51123 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/93371 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/113762 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/229897 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/284813 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/303924 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/322263 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/348010 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/351627 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/376721 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/378176 – tchrist Apr 08 '17 at 14:41
  • 1
    @DanBron As you’ll by now have seen from the dupes, this turns out to be an ᴇxᴛʀᴇᴍᴇʟʏ Frequently Asked Question: for whatever the reason, this particular word-ordering confusion is one that certain broad classes of non-native learners of the English language appear to struggle mightily with. My own pet theory, wholly untested, is that these askers’ original L1 languages don’t lend themselves to the particular sorts of inversion seen in such clauses as do so many Germanic and Romance languages, including English, but broader inquiries are probably better taken to [ell.se] or [linguistics.se]. – tchrist Apr 08 '17 at 14:49
  • 2
    @tchrist I think "is English unique or unusual in its permissivity of inversion" is a great question for ELU. – Dan Bron Apr 08 '17 at 14:53
  • 1
    @DanBron Although I’ve selected the duplicate bearing John Lawler’s answer with its clear statement that “[e]mbedded questions normally don't allow Subject–Auxiliary inversion” as being canonical for this, I can certainly add others to the dupe-list if need be, and should the asker still be unclear on all this business after reading the Professor’s fine answer there (and perhaps also other answers from the various questions I’ve linked), they should please either edit their question here to clarify just where their lingering confusion lies, or even ask a separate question about the same. – tchrist Apr 08 '17 at 15:00
  • @tchrist my L1 language is from the Latin group. Inversion is used often in poetry. That is likely the reason why it sounded well to me to say "how will history" rather than "how history will". Thank you for linking all those questions. I went through every single one of your links. Indeed, good answer by John Lawler. I won't say "excellent" because it's a bit too advanced for my current English grammar knowledge :). I will revisit that at a later date. But overall, reading all those questions has greatly improved my grasp of word order and question structure. I've edited my question :) – Axonn Apr 08 '17 at 16:52
  • 1
    @Axonn Ahah! Yes, in Romance (such as Spanish, Portuguese, Italian) these sorts of subordinate clauses can certainly take inversion like this, particularly in higher registers such as literature or poetry. However, this is one of those places where doesn't do that the English language. :) – tchrist Apr 08 '17 at 20:17
  • This is should be purely about punctuation.

    As it is, 'wondering how will history remember' is simply wrong and 'wondering how history will remember' simply right. However, 'wondering: “how will history remember” ‘ is equally right. If someone can explain how the two spoken, might sound different, go ahead.

     – Robbie Goodwin Apr 23 '17 at 00:01

0 Answers0