Use of 'who knows'

Question

HiCould you please help me punctuate this correctly?(Mother looks at her young son who has been writing something for sometime now)Who knows someone is writing poetry.Who knows, someone is writing poetry.Who knows someone is writing poetry!Thanks,Tom

Clive · Accepted Answer

Could you please help me punctuate this correctly?

Who knows someone is writing poetry? This needs a question mark.

Who knows, someone is writing poetry. This is usually the correct punctuation.

Who knows someone is writing poetry. Not wrong.

The phrase 'who knows' is used to introduce something that you are not sure about, so in all your sentences I'd express doubt or uncertainty in some way.

eg Who knows, someone may be writing poetry.

eg Who knows, perhaps someone is writing poetry.

You could also make 'who knows' a separate question,

eg Who knows? Perhaps someone is writing poetry. But normally we don't do this.

Clive

CalifJim · Answer

From the context I think you may be using the wrong idiom.

Who knows says that basically nobody knows. It's like a shrug of the shoulders.

Who knows, maybe this mystery will be solved in our lifetime.
Who knows, maybe someday they'll invent personal flying machines.

I think you want something that expresses surprise (usually a pleasant one).

What do you know, someone is writing poetry!
Well, what do you know, here comes my brother! I thought he was in Spain this week.

CJ

Use of 'who knows'

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