Rhetorical questions

§ 16. Both general and pronominal questions may serve as rhetorical questions. A rhetorical question contains a statement disguised as a question. Usually it is a positive question hiding a negative statement. No answer is expected.

Can any one say what truth is? (No one can say what it is.)

Do we always act as we ought to? (We do not always act as we ought to.)

What else could I do? (I could do nothing.)

Who would have thought to meet you here? (Nobody would.)

In their form and intonation rhetorical questions do not differ from standard question types. The difference lies in their communicative aim. A rhetorical question does not ask for any new information. It implies a statement and is always emotionally coloured. Besides, it is employed to attract the listener's attention. Since rhetorical questions do not require an answer, they are not followed by a response. The speaker may give an answer himself to clarify his idea. Rhetorical questions are employed in monological speech, especially in oratory, and poetry in the writer’s digressions.

To me what is wealth? - it may pass in an hour.

If tyrants prevail, or if Fortune should frown:

To me what is title? - the phantom of power;

To me what is fashion? - I seek but renown. (Byron)

And what, after all, can it be other than modesty that makes him [Roy Kear] even now write to the reviewers of his books, thanking them for their praise and ask them for luncheon? (Maugham)

Rhetorical questions occur in colloquial English too, as in this fragment of dialogue:

Will you give me a picture of yours? - What for?... I’m not Marilyn Monroe or Jane Mansfield.

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