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For example, in the two sentences below, are you supposed to end with a question mark?

Which of Shaw's plays has the line "If only parents would realize how they bore their children!"

And

Is the next board-meeting going to be held in Washington, D.C.

Edit: Why do I ask? Because the Webster's New World College Dictionary (3rd edition) that I have at home says if two marks of punctuation are needed at the same place within a sentence, 'only the stronger is usually retained'. And they give the first sentence as an example, omitting the question mark. I made up the second example. There's nothing said about how to decide which is stronger.

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  • The two lines might be made to look less awkward if the exclamation mark were omitted in the first and the second used "DC" instead of "D.C.", but a question always ends with a question mark.
    – Andrew Leach ♦
    Jan 4, 2013 at 12:37
  • As per my first comment, a question always ends in a question mark, so that must be "stronger" than anything else. When was your dictionary published? Which edition is it?
    – Andrew Leach ♦
    Jan 4, 2013 at 13:02
  • @AndrewLeach: Sorry, it's actually Webster's New World college dictionary, third edition, and not the Oxford dictionary. (There's no publishing date; just a foreword by the editor in the beginning dated 1996). See image: i.stack.imgur.com/eSY0I.jpg
    – Acid2
    Jan 4, 2013 at 13:57
  • It's a good question. However, considering that the Webster's used such an example now makes the question more of a kind of popularity poll: "yes, I think so, too" vs. "no, I don't agree." Perhaps OP should write to the editors asking for a clarification.
    – Kris
    Jan 6, 2013 at 6:34

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Both need a question mark:

Which of Shaw's plays has the line "If only parents would realize how they bore their children!"?

Is the next board-meeting going to be held in Washington, D.C.?

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