Haven't listened to the episode yet – any mention of the New England Moxie Congress?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that "guess what?" is being treated as a question because it takes the place of "you know what?" That really is a question in both form and intent, and because the two are treated as straight-across replacements for one another, they're seen as requiring the same punctuation.

Post edited 9:53AM – Nov-07-10 by natatorium

Horse apples. I grew up as a townie in a rural area. During family car rides in the country, we would encounter what my parents called "horse apples" on the road.

All these food variations are just ways to talk about sh*t without saying sh*t. The reliance on food terms comes from the fact that the production process and the product are in many ways reminiscent of cooking and food (think baking – although you may never enjoy another molasses cookie) much moreso than any other activity, say, carpentry, sculpting, high fashion design, FOX News. Wait…

Wikipedia has an explanation to answer one caller's question: But who's Kirby? And who's Bobby? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_pin.

I used to have a raft of software programming employees in England (Ipswich), and enjoyed our mutual misapprehensions of the language. (Knocking up a neighbor to ask for a rubber was always a favorite.) (Isn't it too late to ask, then?)

But the incredibly frustrating thing was that, even when they were wrong, I was ineligible to correct the English of the English. Reactions ranged from disinterest or disbelief in my comments to outrage at such cheek. Aarrgh!

Glenn said:

Have you ever been in this scenario?

Guess what (punctuation omitted)
What?
Guess (punctuation omitted)
I can't.
Really. Guess (punctuation omitted)

Guess what?
What?
Guess.
I dunno. What??
No really. Guess!

I suppose then at first it's a question, and more forceful each time you repeat.

Bill 5 said:

Anonymous said:
Guess what?
What?

I suppose then at first it's a question, and more forceful each time you repeat.

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The "What?" is certainly a question. However, the "Guess what" is in no way a question! As noted above, it is an imperative!
Inquiries (except from a parent or a good lawyer) are for those exchanges where the questioner does not know the answer. The speaker of "Guess what" does not want to learn anything – it's a rhetorical attention-getter.

PLEASE use a bang, not a whimper – er, ah, question mark.

No need to insult the question mark. I'm just following the crowd. It's said as a question (with typical interrogatory inflection); it can easily be interpreted as a question (can you guess what happened?); and it is usually punctuated as a question (per Google). So guess what? It's a question. ;p

Perhaps we shouldn't look at "Guess what" as a sentence or a question, or even as two words, but rather as a single semaphore. Its meaning isn't embedded so much in the words, but in the fact that everyone knows what to do when you say it.

Glenn said:

Which reminds me of a knock-knock joke. No, really. It reminds me of a knock-knock joke in form.

Knock, knock (punctuation omitted)
Who's there?
A punctuation mark.
What punctuation mark?
Ahhhh … Errr … Ummmm. Guess what (punctuation omitted)

In my mind, "knock, knock" functions much like "guess what" in that it is part of a ritual dialog that elicits a highly predictable response. Do the question mark team think that this should also be punctuated by a question mark because it is intended to elicit a response?
Knock, knock?
Who's there?
A punctuation mark?
…

No, no question mark, just a full stop (or period if you like); "Knock, knock" has no real meaning other than the fact that the speaker is telling you a joke and the appropriate reply is "Who's there?"

I suppose that argument could potentially be applied to "Guess what" as well, that its only real meaning is that the speaker said, did or heard something spectacular and the appropriate reply is "What?"

So perhaps we're all wrong and the correct punctuation is a fullstop.

We have an equivalent of "sleeping like a log" in Polish: "spać jak kłoda" and something similar to the English "be dead to the world" – "spać jak zabity" .

Same thing in Czech: spát jako kláda, spát jako zabitý.

I happen to say "knock, knock" with a rising inflection, but I am afraid to punctuate it because a question mark feels right to me, but I'm not sure if it actually follows Standard English usage rules.