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[fw]

Toward the beginning of Milne�s �Winnie-The-Pooh,� there is a passage that goes:

"What about a story?" said Christopher Robin.
"What about a story?" I said.
"Could you very sweetly tell Winnie-the-Pooh one?"

I am wondering what nuance the second "What about a story?" has in it. The word �what� is italicized there. If the �about,� instead of �what,� had been italicized, I would have understood it easily, since the whole sentence is a repetition of Christopher�s suggestion.

Any comment would be appreciated.

[lotus]

Hi fw,

I think your intuition is correct. The first question (being asked by Christopher Robins) is kindly requesting a night time story. The second question (by the author) is rhetorical, and leads the author to request Christopher Robins to tell Winnie-the-Pooh a story instead.

In such a case, I would put the accent on "about" in the second question. However, "what" is accentuated almost as strongly and I can see how it can be italicized instead, especially since it's the first word of the sentence. Also, author A.A. Milne was born in London, England. British pronunciation of the sentence in this situation may be different.


--lotus
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