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Tell me what is your opinion on this matter.
Tell me what your opinion on this matter is.

Which one is correct? I understand the word order in the sentence like I want to know where she is. But does my above sentence belong to the same type like I can recognize who is happy? I am not sure.

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  • Both are grammatical and understandable.
    – Affable Geek
    Commented Dec 20, 2014 at 17:23
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    There is a different pragmatic effect when you don't invert the subject and the auxiliary in an embedded question. They don't mean the same thing. But you missed another possibility: Tell me what your opinion is on this matter is more common and means the same thing as Tell me what your opinion on this matter is. Neither means the same as Tell me what is your opinion on this matter, which is intended to be a real question and has to be intoned and punctuated like one, as Eric points out below.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Dec 20, 2014 at 18:31

2 Answers 2

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Both formulations can be used.

Tell me what your opinion on this matter is

is a straightforward prompt which invites the other person to say what they think.

In its written form, the variant wording requires some additional punctuation to clarify the fact that it is actually a question:

Tell me: what is your opinion on this matter?

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  • I think "Tell me, what is your opinion on this matter?" would be more aligned with how one would speak the phrase.
    – Burhan Khalid
    Commented Dec 21, 2014 at 6:26
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Previous answers are correct.
However, especially in spoken AmE, it would likely be shortened to "[please] Tell me your opinion on this [matter]." or simply "Tell me what you think of this". That, of course, eliminates any wondering about punctuation, or about placement of what and is, with a typically American economy of words.

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  • I agree w/ this answer. If the question is more formal, we'd simply say: I'd appreciate (or welcome) your opinion. You don't even need "on this" if it's implied. Yes, we Yanks are very economical.
    – Oldbag
    Commented Dec 21, 2014 at 13:27

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