Hello, all.

Native speakers have frequenly corrected my questions worded
like "How to stroke a cat?", saying that this is not a com-
plete sentence, but a phrase, which may work only without a
question mark as a title to a chapter in the cat man page.

What say you, then, to the following question from Dunsany's
"King of Elfland's Daughter" -- the most poetic work of
prose about the Good people (followed closely by Machen's
"The White People"):

Sorrowfully then that parliament of Erl saw that their
plans to have a magic lord had failed; they were all
old men, and the hope that they had had for so long
being gone they turned less easily to newer plans than
they had to the plan that they made so long ago. What
should they do now, they said? How come by magic?
What could they do that the world should remember Erl?
Twelve old men without magic. They sat there over
their mead, and it could not lighten their sadness.

If "How to come by magic?" is not grammatical, why "How come
by magic?" is? How explain this difference?

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On Sun, 6 Feb 2022 12:48:16 +0300, Anton Shepelev
<anton.txt@gmail.com> wrote:

>Hello, all.
>
>Native speakers have frequenly corrected my questions worded
>like "How to stroke a cat?", saying that this is not a com-
>plete sentence, but a phrase, which may work only without a
>question mark as a title to a chapter in the cat man page.

Yes, they are exactly right.

Should be"How does one stroke a cat?"

>What say you, then, to the following question from Dunsany's
>"King of Elfland's Daughter" -- the most poetic work of
>prose about the Good people (followed closely by Machen's
>"The White People"):
>
> Sorrowfully then that parliament of Erl saw that their
> plans to have a magic lord had failed; they were all
> old men, and the hope that they had had for so long
> being gone they turned less easily to newer plans than
> they had to the plan that they made so long ago. What
> should they do now, they said? How come by magic?
> What could they do that the world should remember Erl?
> Twelve old men without magic. They sat there over
> their mead, and it could not lighten their sadness.
>
>If "How to come by magic?" is not grammatical, why "How come
>by magic?" is? How explain this difference?

Ut qoeka id ir's clearly a soliloqui, describing a thought.

How to come by magic? That is the qyestion.

To be or not to be? That is the question.

But as a heading it doesn't work -- it reads like a statement with a
question mark after it.

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Steve Hayes to Anton Shepelev:

> > Sorrowfully then that parliament of Erl saw that
> > their plans to have a magic lord had failed; they
> > were all old men, and the hope that they had had for
> > so long being gone they turned less easily to newer
> > plans than they had to the plan that they made so
> > long ago. What should they do now, they said? How
> > come by magic? What could they do that the world
> > should remember Erl? Twelve old men without magic.
> > They sat there over their mead, and it could not
> > lighten their sadness.
> >
> > If "How to come by magic?" is not grammatical, why "How
> > come by magic?" is? How explain this difference?
>
> Ut qoeka id ir's clearly a soliloqui, describing a
> thought.

Yes, it is. How come "How come by magic?" is a grammatical
expression of a question thought, but not of a question ut-
tered?

> How to come by magic? That is the qyestion.

Is that grammatical?

> To be or not to be? That is the question.

There in no question mark in Shakespeare.

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On Sun, 6 Feb 2022 16:53:18 +0300, Anton Shepelev
<anton.txt@gmail.com> wrote:

>Steve Hayes to Anton Shepelev:
>
>> > Sorrowfully then that parliament of Erl saw that
>> > their plans to have a magic lord had failed; they
>> > were all old men, and the hope that they had had for
>> > so long being gone they turned less easily to newer
>> > plans than they had to the plan that they made so
>> > long ago. What should they do now, they said? How
>> > come by magic? What could they do that the world
>> > should remember Erl? Twelve old men without magic.
>> > They sat there over their mead, and it could not
>> > lighten their sadness.
>> >
>> > If "How to come by magic?" is not grammatical, why "How
>> > come by magic?" is? How explain this difference?
>>
>> Ut qoeka id ir's clearly a soliloqui, describing a
>> thought.
>
>Yes, it is. How come "How come by magic?" is a grammatical
>expression of a question thought, but not of a question ut-
>tered?
>
>> How to come by magic? That is the qyestion.
>
>Is that grammatical?
>
>> To be or not to be? That is the question.
>
>There in no question mark in Shakespeare.

No, because it isn't really a question. It is showing that the
character is thinking about a question.

There are many badly worded questions on the Quora question-and-answer
web site.

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

On 2/6/2022 8:53 AM, Anton Shepelev wrote:
> Steve Hayes to Anton Shepelev:
>
>>> Sorrowfully then that parliament of Erl saw that their plans
>>> to have a magic lord had failed; they were all old men, and
>>> the hope that they had had for so long being gone they turned
>>> less easily to newer plans than they had to the plan that
>>> they made so long ago. What should they do now, they said?
>>> How come by magic? What could they do that the world should
>>> remember Erl? Twelve old men without magic. They sat there
>>> over their mead, and it could not lighten their sadness.

>>> If "How to come by magic?" is not grammatical, why "How come by
>>> magic?" is? How explain this difference?

>> Ut qoeka id ir's clearly a soliloqui, describing a
>> thought.

> Yes, it is. How come "How come by magic?" is a grammatical
> expression of a question thought, but not of a question ut- tered?

>> How to come by magic? That is the qyestion.

> Is that grammatical?

When taken as an extension of the question before it, it really should
be "How come by magic?": "What should they do now?" they said.* "How
[should they] come by** magic?"

>> To be or not to be? That is the question.

> There in no question mark in Shakespeare.

"Question" there means "point at issue", not "inquiry". The distinction
is made clearly in Spanish between a "pregunta", which gets two (2!!)
question marks, and a "cuestión", which gets none.
_________________________________________
*I have corrected the punctuation of that sentence.

** In this context, "come by" means "obtain"; "should" is changed from
their direct questions "what shall we do" and "how shall we come"
according to the sequence-of-tenses rules for indirect speech referring
to the past.

I wrote:

> What say you, then, to the following question from
> Dunsany's "King of Elfland's Daughter" -- the most
> poetic work of prose about the Good people (followed
> closely by Machen's "The White People"):
>
> Sorrowfully then that parliament of Erl saw that
> their plans to have a magic lord had failed; they
> were all old men, and the hope that they had
> had for so long being gone they turned less eas-
> ily to newer plans than they had to the plan that
> they made so long ago. What should they do now,
> they said? How come by magic? What could
> they do that the world should remember Erl?
> Twelve old men without magic. They sat there
> over their mead, and it could not lighten their
> sadness.
>
> If "How to come by magic?" is not grammatical, why
> "How come by magic?" is? How explain this differ-
> ence?

In addition to the above, I have encoutered what seems
to be a genuine "How to" question in G.K. Chesterton's
"The Wisdom of Father Brown":

"Mr. Glass's hat," said the doctor, returning with
it and peering into the inside with a pocket lens.
"How to explain the absence of Mr. Glass and the
presence of Mr. Glass's hat? For Mr. Glass is not a
careless man with his clothes. This hat is of a
stylish shape and systematically brushed and bur-
nished, though not very new. An old dandy, I should
think."

How to explain this usage?

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On 9/29/2022 5:31 PM, Anton Shepelev wrote:
> I wrote:

>> What say you, then, to the following question from Dunsany's
>> "King of Elfland's Daughter" -- the most poetic work of prose
>> about the Good people (followed closely by Machen's "The White
>> People"):

>> Sorrowfully then that parliament of Erl saw that their plans to
>> have a magic lord had failed; they were all old men, and the
>> hope that they had had for so long being gone they turned less
>> eas- ily to newer plans than they had to the plan that they made
>> so long ago. What should they do now, they said? How come by
>> magic? What could they do that the world should remember
>> Erl? Twelve old men without magic. They sat there over their
>> mead, and it could not lighten their sadness.

>> If "How to come by magic?" is not grammatical, why "How come by
>> magic?" is? How explain this differ- ence?

There is no "to" there. "How [should they] come by magic?", with the
missing words supplied by the earlier question.

What they were asking themselves, in direct discourse, was "What shall
we do now? How shall we come by magic?".
> In addition to the above, I have encoutered what seems to be a
> genuine "How to" question in G.K. Chesterton's "The Wisdom of Father
> Brown":

> "Mr. Glass's hat," said the doctor, returning with it and peering
> into the inside with a pocket lens. "How to explain the absence of
> Mr. Glass and the presence of Mr. Glass's hat? For Mr. Glass is
> not a careless man with his clothes. This hat is of a stylish
> shape and systematically brushed and bur- nished, though not very
> new. An old dandy, I should think."

> How to explain this usage?

Supply "are we", in both GK's example and yours.