I thought it was a metaphor for the markets!
Everyone thinks a bull (bear) run is going well.
Then, someone decides that maybe the market is too expensive(cheap) and decides to hold back (puts their hand up).
Others see this, and begin to question their own views on the market.
The momentum slows down. (more hands go up)
A possible change of sentiment takes place if enough people put their hands up.
Summary: putting their hands up raises doubts about current mindset, and results in changes of sentiment and momentum
Shows you how much I know.
Thank you for this Trendie... This is so much clearer than some of the arty farty stuff from before. Makes perfect sense too.
VOLTAIRE said, "Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers." But we are helpless spectators of a sordid drama where elected representatives indulge in judging questions by the munificence that came along, rather than by their relevance to the larger social cause.
"Man will not live without answers to his questions," assures Hans J. Morgenthau. Yet, we may well have to live without getting answers to the simple question of when the Aegean Stables of our public governance will get cleansed. Even as a probe is on the lapse in parliamentary probity, let us delve into `question'.
The word, according to Concise Oxford English Dictionary, means "a sentence worded or expressed so as to elicit information". It is "an interrogative expression often used to test knowledge," says Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Etymology is traced to "Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin quaestion-, quaestio, from quaerere to seek, ask."
On that
Online Etymology Dictionary has more to say: "c.1300, from Anglo-Fr. questiun, O.Fr. question `legal inquest,' from L. quæstionem (nom. quæstio) `a seeking, inquiry,' from root of quærere (pp. quæsitus) `ask, seek.'"
The verb from is from 1470, from Old French questionner (13c.); and `question mark' is from 1869, earlier question stop (1862), informs the dictionary. "Depreciatory sense of `questionable' is attested from 1806."
Questionable means open to doubt, of suspect morality, honesty, value, and so on. Questionary is a questionnaire, which turn is a set of printed questions with options as answers, for use in surveys. Question time or question hour is when the House allows queries from members.
Question can be a pointed, probing or searching one, points out Oxford Collocations. "He became embarrassed when a journalist asked him pointed questions about his finances," reads an example. Other adjectives that the dictionary lists for `question' are: awkward, difficult, embarrassing, tricky, personal, academic, hypothetical, rhetorical, leading, loaded, good, pertinent, relevant, simple, daft, inane, silly, stupid, direct, straight, exam, multiple choice, and so on.
Question is "a request for information or for a reply, which usually ends with a question mark if written or on a rising intonation if spoken," defines Encarta and lists a few usages.
Thus, `beg the question' means, "take for granted the very point that needs to be proved, and so fail to address an issue properly," or give rise to something else that should be answered or explained. `Be out of the question,' is used when something is impossible or unacceptable. `Call something into question' when you want to raise doubts.
What is `in question' refers to `the person or thing under discussion', as the current cash-for-question imbroglio. `Pop the question' means `propose marriage to somebody (informal),' informs
MSN Encarta : Online Encyclopedia, Dictionary, Atlas, and Homework.
A question is "an illocutionary act that has a directive illocutionary point of attempting to get the addressee to supply information," explains
Linguistics in SIL. "Sentences with inverted word order or interrogative pro-forms: What's your name? Did you sleep well?" An illocutionary act, if you are keen to know, "is a complete speech act, made in a typical utterance, that consists of the delivery of the propositional content of the utterance (including references and a predicate), and a particular illocutionary force, whereby the speaker asserts, suggests, demands, promises, or vows."
A question is "a sentence, a phrase or even just a gesture that shows that the speaker or writer wants the reader or listener to supply them with some information, to perform a task or in some other way satisfy the request," describes
UsingEnglish.com - Learning English (ESL) Online.
The site discusses many `types of question' such as `academic question' (one whose answer may be of interest but is of no practical use or importance); `embedded question' (a part of a sentence that would be a question if it were on its own, but is not a question in the context of the sentence); `question tag' (a.k.a. tail question, made by making a statement and putting an auxiliary verb and a pronoun at the end, as for example, `She wasn't there, was she?'); and `yes/no question' (can be answered with yes or no, and normally begins with `an auxiliary verb or a modal verb', such as, `Will they be interested?')
Questions are used from the most elementary stage of learning to original research, educates Wikipedia. Only, the eleven-in-question seem to have used questions as a stage of earning.
In the scientific method, a question often forms the basis of the investigation and can be considered a transition between the observation and hypothesis stages," adds
Main Page - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Ongoing investigation is not so much about the questions they asked, as about eliciting `yes/no' to `Did you!'
Wiki notes that `presuppositional questions', such as `Have you stopped beating your wife?' may be used as a joke or to embarrass the audience, because any answer a person could give would imply more information than he was willing to affirm. Should we rephrase the wife-line now as, "Have you stopped taking money for questions?"?
Question can mean doubt or uncertainty, explains Cambridge Dictionary of American English, and offers examples: "He's competent - there's no question about that. Her loyalty is beyond question." Question can also refer to "a matter to be dealt with or discussed, or a problem to be solved," as in, "It's simply a question of getting your priorities straight. The question is, are they telling the truth? I was at home on the night in question."
Question means "examination with reference to a decisive result; investigation; specifically, a judicial or official investigation; also, examination under torture," informs Webster Dictionary, 1913, citing Blackstone. "The Scottish privy council had power to put state prisoners to the question," is a quote of Macaulay, as example. On this, there is more on
The 'Lectric Law Library's Entrance, Welcome & Tour - legal resources and definitions, the site of the `Lectric Law Library's Lexicon: "Question - A means sometimes employed, in some countries, by means of torture, to compel supposed great criminals to disclose their accomplices, or to acknowledge their crimes."
This torture is called `question', because, as the unfortunate person accused is made to suffer pain, he is asked questions as to his supposed crime or accomplices, explains the site.
The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question means, informally, the million-dollar question, that is, "an important or difficult question which people do not know the answer to," according to
Cambridge Dictionaries Online - Cambridge University Press. "If there is `a question mark over something,' no one knows whether it will continue to exist in the future or what will happen to it," it adds, about another idiom.
`To move the previous question' is apparently a phrase that no one seems able to give any clear and satisfactory explanation, as one learns from
Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Encyclopedia, Dictionary, Thesaurus and hundreds more. "It is an ingenious method of avoiding a vote upon any question that has been proposed, but the technical phrase does little to elucidate its operation," is the opinion of Erskine May, in his Parliamentary Practice, cited by Bartleby.
Thankfully, George Santayana assures that by nature's kindly disposition most questions, which it is beyond a man's power to answer, do not occur to him at all. An old proverb is that a fool may ask more questions in an hour than a wise man can answer in seven years. Voltaire chides, "He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked."
There are, therefore, no informed answers if you're asking why, where, and so on about the latest scandal. Don't fret, however, because valuable clue lies in this quote of George Bernard Shaw: "No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious."
