General Question

pallen123's avatar

Ellipsis: Part Deux?

Asked by pallen123 (1519points) November 19th, 2008

Thanks all everyone for their helpful comments regarding use of ellipsis versus colon in my brochure. I have a related question regarding the correct use of question marks in a bulleted list. Here’s my list:

Did you know, with our services you can…
– Order any time of hour.
– Pay when you receive payment from distributors.
– Terminate your contracts whenever you want.

Should I have question marks at the end of those bullets?

Argh! I needs me a Ph.D in English pronto!

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9 Answers

robmandu's avatar

My suggestion: remove the interrogative from the wording.

Simply make it:

With our services you can…
– Order any time of hour,
– Pay when you receive payment from distributors,
– Terminate your contracts whenever you want.

“Order any time of hour”?!?! How about, “Order any time day or night”?

La_chica_gomela's avatar

If you really really want to use this contruction, the following would be correct:

Did you know, with our services you can…
– Order any time of hour?
– Pay when you receive payment from distributors?
– Terminate your contracts whenever you want?

But personally, i think that looks a little odd, I would write:

With our services you can:
– Order any time of hour.
– Pay when you receive payment from distributors.
– Terminate your contracts whenever you want.

Also, since you’re asking for help with editing, I wouldn’t say “hour of time” – it just sounds a little odd. I would probably write “order any time” or “any time, day or night”.

EDIT: darn you, robmandu for beating me to it with almost the exact same answer!

robmandu's avatar

heh… La_chica_gomela and robmandu: attached at the mental hip.

La_chica_gomela's avatar

aw, when you put it that way, it doesn’t sound so bad! :-)

dynamicduo's avatar

Question marks at the end of each line sounds a bit too close to those TV infomercial pitches. I highly agree with robmandu’s suggestion, which results in a more professional communication.

augustlan's avatar

Rob and LaChica have it right.

Sueanne_Tremendous's avatar

Rob and Chica
sitting in a tree
Making up answers
one, two. three
sung to the tune of that silly little child hood ditty

Jeruba's avatar

I agree. You’re not really interested in asking a yes-or-no question about whether the reader knew those things. You want to tell the reader those things. The questions sound coy.

What does “any time of hour” mean? Do you mean “any time of day”? “at any hour”?

fireside's avatar

If this is still for the brochure, drop the punctuation at the end of the bullets.
Not necessary.

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