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I'm not sure if this is something recent, although I've been noticing it much more frequently now than say a couple of years ago. Many times people will make a statement, but will have it in an Interrogative form. For example, I recently saw this sentence online:

Consider what are the consequences of not being great in your home.

This was the sentence construction; however, I would have though it would be more like this:

Consider what the consequences of not being great in your home are.

All I did was move the verb, "are" to the end of the sentence.

Why is it that this happens? Is this a recent development in language, or is it that I'm just now noticing it? If I were to use this interrogative form, would it be commonly considered correct in a formal setting?

Morella Almånd
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    I'm not sure the premise is correct but you have asked a very good question nonetheless. The first sentence is grammatical and sounds more idiomatic than the second, nor would I consider the 2nd any better. I think your conclusion, noticing this particular structure, is correct. I look forward to seeing someone post an answer to this one! – Mari-Lou A Dec 15 '17 at 11:14
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    One reason the second sentence feels clunky may be that you removed are as for as possible from its subject. I think it already sounds a lot better as Consider what the consequences are of not being great in your home. The first sentence does sound "off" to me, and would make me suspicious whether the author is actually a native speaker. That said, I hear and read much stranger grammatical concoctions form native mouth and pen... – oerkelens Dec 15 '17 at 11:24
  • Do you have any sources of examples of this phenomenon? – oerkelens Dec 15 '17 at 11:25
  • @oerkelens I agree with you on that your sentence construction sounds more natural than the one I put up there. As to the author, she isn't a native speaker, but I've been hearing that kind of syntax from many people who are native speakers. I've had this question for a while, this was just the first time I found an example in writing. I can see if I can add more, but I don't have a source for this-- it's just an observation – Morella Almånd Dec 15 '17 at 11:29
  • I don’t understand how that’s an interrogative form.

    Why would Consider what are the consequences of not being great in your home not be better as Consider the consequences of not being great in your home?

    Then almost oddly, why would Consider what the consequences of not being great in your home are not better be Consider the consequences of not being great in your home?

     – Robbie Goodwin Dec 16 '17 at 21:59
  • @RobbieGoodwin I used the term loosely because I couldn't think of a better word for it. If you got rid of the "consider" at the begining of the example, the rest of the sentence would read as a question – Morella Almånd Dec 16 '17 at 22:24
  • Jolly good. Now, looking at the differences you just revealed, could you go back and re-phrase the Question, please|? – Robbie Goodwin Dec 16 '17 at 22:41
  • @RobbieGoodwin How would you suggest I rephrase it? – Morella Almånd Dec 16 '17 at 22:47
  • Sorry, Morella. My suggestion was not simply that the idea needed re-phrasing, but that you yourself re-phrase it.

    Broadly, your re-phrasing will add much value to the Question… and vice-versa…

     – Robbie Goodwin Dec 16 '17 at 23:05
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    @RobbieGoodwin I have to say, I don't really understand what it is that you're finding to be the problem with the question. I see that the way that I've reworded the sentence may be considered non-standard, but I hear sentence formation like that quite often nonetheless. I'm using it simply to contrast the first type of sentence formation, so the specific type of sentence formation I use isn't horribly important as long as I don't set it up in the way one would set up a question. Is that the problem, or is it with my calling it an "interrogative form"? – Morella Almånd Dec 16 '17 at 23:20
  • @RobbieGoodwin I can change it to the form you used as the better example in your first comment. Is that what it is you're asking? – Morella Almånd Dec 16 '17 at 23:21
  • Sorry, Morella. Even if I fully understood your original Question, I wouldn't want to do your work for you.

    Please at home, re-phrase your Question at least three different ways then post either your best choice or preferably, all of them…

     – Robbie Goodwin Dec 16 '17 at 23:33
  • @RobbieGoodwin When you say the question, I assume you mean the form of the examples? – Morella Almånd Dec 16 '17 at 23:39
  • I meant the Question title, and detail and the examples. Please note that you're on the verge of being automatically pushed into Chat, which I won't join. – Robbie Goodwin Dec 16 '17 at 23:41
  • @RobbieGoodwin Okay, will do – Morella Almånd Dec 17 '17 at 00:09
  • Related: what is the food choice/what the food choice is (inversion), “I'm not sure what the right way is”, Is the inversion in “Let’s see ʜᴏᴡ ᴄᴀɴ ᴡᴇ do this” an error for “Let’s see ʜᴏᴡ ᴡᴇ ᴄᴀɴ do this”? – herisson Jan 19 '18 at 23:52
  • Possibly related: Should Rhetorical Questions End with a Period? Also, can you rule out the possibility that this is a typo for us? – Tonepoet Jan 20 '18 at 05:37
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    Though it’s not super-obvious, this is actually more or less the same question as Is the inversion in “Let’s see ʜᴏᴡ ᴄᴀɴ ᴡᴇ do this” an error for “Let’s see ʜᴏᴡ ᴡᴇ ᴄᴀɴ do this”?, which sumelic linked to above. John Lawler’s answer in particular is a useful and good read. I don’t think there’s anything particularly recent about this variant. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Feb 19 '18 at 01:20
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Interesting link, but I suggest that this is actually substantially different. Take, for example, "Consider what could have been the consequences of not being in your own home". This is not necessarily an example of subject-auxiliary inversion. Rather it would seem to be an instance of subject dependent inversion. Another clue that this is the case is that "Consider what are they" doesn't go down too well - presumably because they would constitute old info. This kind of constraint doesn't normally apply to bona fide SAI constructions. – Araucaria - Him Feb 26 '18 at 16:08
  • @Araucaria I would say that “Consider what could have been the consequences of not being in your own home” does not display any kind of inversion at all. What is merely the subject, and the consequences are the subject complement. In every case I can think of where the relative interrogative cannot be analysed as subject, variants with no inversion seem completely ungrammatical to me. They only work when the relative can be taken to be the subject. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Feb 26 '18 at 16:28
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Erm, I don't get you. If What is the subject in the OP's example, there's no inversion there either! – Araucaria - Him Feb 26 '18 at 16:37
  • @JanusBahsJacquet It seems to me, if we substitute the longer noun phrases with pronouns, that the non-embedded version of the sentence would be "What could they have been?" not "What could have been them?" ... What do you think? – Araucaria - Him Feb 26 '18 at 16:40
  • @Araucaria The difference is that with the present-tense are (as in the question), the consequences pretty much have to be the subject; otherwise I would say “Consider what’s the consequences of not being at home” with a singular verb (though admittedly this is unusual enough to require quite a specific context to work; it means “Consider the thing which is the consequences”, which is also oddness). With could have been (as in your example), either option works. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Feb 26 '18 at 16:43
  • @JanusBahsJacquet But doesn't that just seem to show that what isn't the subject in both cases? – Araucaria - Him Feb 26 '18 at 16:45
  • @Araucaria Not that I can see, no… Using a singular noun to simplify matters: “Consider what[SC] the result[S] is” (embedded question with wh-fronting; no inversion); “Consider what[S = that which] is the result[SC]” (relative clause; no inversion). Both are grammatical, but mean different things; what is the subject in one, but not the other. With a plural noun, things are different: semantically, plural S + singular SC works, while singular S + plural SC doesn’t. This is why the example in the question is so odd and jarring even if the verb is singularised. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Feb 26 '18 at 17:07

2 Answers2

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Interrogative sentences may actually be declarative sentences, and not interrogative at all. (These pages seem helpful: http://www.k12reader.com/interrogative-sentences/ and http://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/interrogative_sentence.htm)

A clearly interrogative sentence would be:

Have you considered the consequences of not being great in your home?

A declarative sentence would be:

Consider the consequences of not being great at home.

I can't comment if this is a new or different style in recent times. However, if you're talking about articles in magazines or online, the declarative style appears to be more prevalent.

For example, if this is a women's magazine (I'm just guessing, could be a men's magazine or blog)... then the author appears to be telling you to consider what happens if you're not great at home. This is a more assertive tone.

If the author wanted a more gentle, discussive tone, then they would use a clearly interrogative sentence. Consider:

Option A (Interrogative sentence, less assertive tone)

Have you considered the consequences of not being great in your home? Your teenage children may not look up to you anymore.

Option B (Declarative sentence, assertive tone)

Consider the consequences of not being great at home. It can lead to marital and family problems.

SaltySub2
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    This does not address the question posed by the OP. – Jim Jan 19 '18 at 20:50
  • @Jim Hi Jim, could you shed more light on what you believe the OP is asking? The two answers here have been downvoted so I'm not sure where the disconnect is. If you, others or OP could clarify that would be great. Cheers. – SaltySub2 Feb 05 '18 at 05:10
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Without additional context on this particular example, I would say that it is most likely a language error made by a non-native speaker. My wife, who is not a native speaker, makes this mistake from time to time.

Non-native speakers must learn the appropriate word order for questions and statements (what are the XXX vs. what the XXX are). Sometimes they confuse this when speaking or writing as it differs from their native language.

Eric
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    Would you like to expand on this? What sort of error is it? Why would they make such an error? – Andrew Leach Jan 19 '18 at 23:14
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    @AndrewLeach I added some detail, but I'm not sure how to be much clearer. Word order is a learned construct. For those who do not have a good feel for which word order to use in which context, it's easy to pick the wrong one. English speakers have similar problems with word order and grammar in other languages. – Eric Jan 19 '18 at 23:53