Pimp my English | Making requests

By Anna Malczyk

Last week, we looked at asking questions. This week, we are going to explore the difference between questions and requests.

Recap
Remember the word order used in normal sentences and questions:

Normal sentence: Subject – verb – object
Specific question: [Question word –] verb – subject – object

A question always contains a verb followed by a subject.

Imperative form
If you want to make a request without asking a question, you must make sure that you are using the imperative sentence form. The word “imperative” means “command or order”. Even though it has a strict-sounding name, it is a normal part of speech and polite to use. Quite simply, you create it by putting the verb at the beginning of a sentence to give the order.

Please have a look at this document.
Come with me.
Give me a hand with this work, please.
Go!

The order is always directed at “you” (both singular and plural). It can never be directed at “he”, “we”, “I”, “they” or any other person. Because of this, there is no subject in the imperative – it is implied. For example:

Please [you] have a look at this document.
[You] come with me.
[You] give me a hand.
[You] go!

Questions vs. requests
Be careful not to use a question mark when you are making a request. Always look at the word order to decide if you should put a question mark. For example:

Could you help me with the project
Would you do the work for me

Here, there is a verb followed by a subject – this is a question. So it should be:

Could you help me with the project?
Would you do the work for me?

Since there is a subject, this sentence can’t be an imperative.

If you write “Could you do [x]?”, you are asking a yes-or-no question; in other words, you are enquiring whether the action or task is possible. If you write “Please do [x]”, you are making a request; in other words, you are asking the recipient to do the task. The first one is a question, which gets a question mark, and the second a request, which does not.