Hi, Anton!  Recently you wrote in a message to All:

AS>  Native speakers have frequenly corrected my questions 
AS>  worded like "How to stroke a cat?", saying that this 
AS>  is not a complete sentence [...]. 


          AFAIK I wasn't there, so I can only guess what was going on.  But a couple of ideas come to mind in this particular case:

             1.  Not everyone agrees about what a sentence is.  Miss Stickler
 would have insisted it have a subject & a predicate, which means the subject
 of an imperative sentence is "you (understood)".  Nowadays a sentence may be
 defined as a complete thought... in which case far less mental gear-grinding
 is expected of the hapless student.  If s/he can't figure out why "Stop!" is
 a sentence but "Whoa!" isn't I understand where such people are coming from.

             2.  It appears to me that when some author writes "But how to do
 this seemingly impossible task?" s/he is often reporting on what a character
 is thinking.  And even Miss Stickler can't control my thoughts... [chuckle].



AS>  What say you, then, to the following question from 
AS>  Dunsany's "King of Elfland's Daughter" -- 


          First, I might say that if you ever visit our home in Canada you'll probably hear things like "douse the glim".  While I don't expect everyone to understand such antiquated language, I have no doubt you would.  I don't mind "what say you" if you don't mind "what sayest thou".  AFAIC it is not only my way of playing with the language but also of honouring the contribution of my distant ancestors, who made a mixture of languages a thing of beauty....  :-)



>>  What should they do now, they said? 
>>  How come by magic?


          The grammar here didn't make any more sense to me than it did to you
... until I tried substituting a comma for the first question mark.  I think a few quotation marks would also help the reader understand the author's intent.



>>  Twelve old men without magic.


          By Miss Stickler's reckoning that's not a complete sentence....  :-Q




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+