“Tell me what it means” is still an imperative demand.
“Could you–?” is more of a request. “Please–” would not involve a question mark. And either could take a question instead of a statement, e.g., “Please tell me, what does it mean?”
The error is more evident in the many examples of people mixing up “How do I–?” and “How to.”
Yeah that’s fair. I’ve reworded this reply a bunch. I think there’s some weird rule that makes requests as questions sound weird. At times people who do it don’t reorder the words, either. I’m not even certain that it’s an ESL thing, or if a lot of native English speakers grew up with a lot of ESL-style content and adopted it? Maybe it’s just me? Anyway, it’s things like:
“Tell me where do I find the nearest park?” vs
“Tell me where I can find the nearest park[, please]”?
“Will somebody explain how can a dog open a door?” vs
“Will somebody explain how a dog can open a door?”
“I was just wondering what colour is a basketball typically?” vs
“I was just wondering what colour a basketball typically is.”
I think those top sentences could still be spoken in a way that sounds proper, but they’re always mashed together. Instead of being spoken in a way that emphasizes the separate parts.
“Tell me, “where do I find the nearest park?”.”
“Will somebody explain: “how can a dog open a door?”.” But still would probably be better expressed separately as: “How does a dog open a door? Will somebody explain?”
“I was just wondering: “what colour is a basketball”?.”
This is one of those things that I think Dr Geoff Lindsey could make a great video on (if he hasn’t already).
But because we gotta be confusing, it could also be posed as a question:
“Could out just tell me what it means, though?”
It’s that thing we do where we smash the statement into the middle of a question, but the question itself is basically the statement.
“Tell me what it means” is still an imperative demand.
“Could you–?” is more of a request. “Please–” would not involve a question mark. And either could take a question instead of a statement, e.g., “Please tell me, what does it mean?”
The error is more evident in the many examples of people mixing up “How do I–?” and “How to.”
Yeah that’s fair. I’ve reworded this reply a bunch. I think there’s some weird rule that makes requests as questions sound weird. At times people who do it don’t reorder the words, either. I’m not even certain that it’s an ESL thing, or if a lot of native English speakers grew up with a lot of ESL-style content and adopted it? Maybe it’s just me? Anyway, it’s things like:
“Tell me where do I find the nearest park?” vs
“Tell me where I can find the nearest park[, please]”?
“Will somebody explain how can a dog open a door?” vs
“Will somebody explain how a dog can open a door?”
“I was just wondering what colour is a basketball typically?” vs
“I was just wondering what colour a basketball typically is.”
I think those top sentences could still be spoken in a way that sounds proper, but they’re always mashed together. Instead of being spoken in a way that emphasizes the separate parts.
“Tell me, “where do I find the nearest park?”.”
“Will somebody explain: “how can a dog open a door?”.” But still would probably be better expressed separately as: “How does a dog open a door? Will somebody explain?”
“I was just wondering: “what colour is a basketball”?.”
This is one of those things that I think Dr Geoff Lindsey could make a great video on (if he hasn’t already).