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I would like to open a discussion concerning 'The Question Mark'

When working on the Joint Effort I do get faced with the difficult decision of whether certain clues warrant a question mark or not.
My understanding is that a question mark is placed at the end of an &lit clue or somewhere in the middle of the clue if the first part is &lit.
I find that the decision becomes clouded when faced with 'Cryptic Definitions' and 'Novelty clues' OR something that is slightly off kilter to the norm of cryptic wordplay.
Without trying to make a definitive judgement on whether a clue does qualify for a question mark or not, I would be very interested to know the opinion of others on this because quite a lot of clues come through to me with question marks at the end and I truly am not sure if they should stay or go (there's a Clash song coming on I feel)

Please feel free to add your opinion concerning 'The Question Mark'

Please respect others views on this.

Maybe we could discuss 'The Exclamation Mark' whilst we're at it.

Thanks, Les40

As long as nobody mentions the ellipses,Les ... .

Good evening Marty,
You can mention whatever you feel is worth a mention tonight mate

well you raise an interesting point , Les . Truthfully I don't know the definitive answer but I'm pretty sure someone out there will !

Off - topic I've just sent out you a JE email , but now I'm thinking I might have missed out a "?" somewhere !

which just goes to show that maybe the golden rule is "If in doubt , leave it out"

I'll take a look soon Marty, just grabbing some food

My understanding is that a question mark indicates a pun or other play on words

I think it is an indication that the clue is a cryptic one - which is basically what Rosalind has said. The word 'maybe' is often used instead.