么or 吗?

[rose~]

Someone said to me on Instant Messaging recently, "你知道王力宏么?".

So what if the difference between "你知道王力宏么?" and "你知道王力宏吗?"?

Thanks.

[houstonrocket1]

"你知道王力宏么?" and "你知道王力宏吗?"?

When using 么, the questioning tone in the sentence is weaker than using 吗.

[zhwj]

Nothing. In SMS and IM it's sometimes easier to enter 'me' and generate the character (or to use just three strokes) - and then it becomes a matter of habit.

Older texts will often choose one or the other, and there probably have been papers written about the distribution of the two characters (someone should chime in here about authorship questions). In general, there's no difference.

[houstonrocket1]

"In SMS and IM it's sometimes easier to enter 'me' and generate the character "

are you kidding? in SMS or IM, when typing 吗 is to press 'ma' while typing 么 is press 'me', it aint any easier for typing either of them: both 2 letters, a and e are both very commonly used letters on your keyborad and both appear as the first character to choose in the box. Nevertheless, if someone says to you, 你难道还不知道么？it has subtle meaning of you should have known, but haven't you? if he says 你难道还不知道吗？it is rather strong tone asking, hey Don't you know?!

C'est tout.

[roddy]

Obviously depends on what input method you are using, no?

On my Sony Ericsson' pinyin input pressing 6-3(m-e) brings up 么 as first option. Pressing 6-2(m-a) brings up a pop-up to choose between ma an na (the same pop up appears for me but me is the first option so no more keypresses required). When you select ma the first option is 马 and it requires one more joystick nudge to select 吗. 吗 requires 5 presses, 么 needs 3.

If you are using stroke input, you need five strokes to identify 吗, with 么 three and then you then have to select it as 夕 comes up as the first option so it works out with 么 having only a slight advantage.

Geekiest. Post. Ever.

Roddy

[nipponman]

FYI, 么 and 吗 used to be the same thing. 吗 was invented recently I guess to seperate the "ma" from the "me" in 么. The same with 罷 and 吧. The latter was invented and replaced the former. I think 么 and 罷 should stay the same however, and I sometimes use them that way.

[oracleonline]

there's no solid difference between the two words in my opinion but i prefer typing 么 in SMS and IM message because it IS faster then 吗. if you use Microsoft Pinyin and T9 pinyin for mobile phones, then you'll find that the first word comes out by typing MA is 马 which you means you have to bother selecting for the right word.

well i do agree with houstonrocket1, these two words have a slight tonal difference and that's all i can see. mostly 吗and 么 are the same to me.