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We were also innocent people, but who helped us?

What is wrong with the above sentence? Can't I put a question and a sentence in the same sentence. My grammar checking software throws following error:

This clause may not be clearly phrased as a question, despite the use of a question mark. Consider putting the auxiliary verb first, or using a question tag.

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    Your grammar checking software is illiterate. Pay it no heed. Aug 4, 2013 at 20:21
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    At least the grammar checker used may instead of is ;^)
    – J.R.
    Aug 5, 2013 at 1:49

1 Answer 1

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To formalize what StoneyB said, computerized grammar checkers are only meant as guides because they don't know context, they only know rules. You really need a human editor or a place like this to figure out if you are writing / speaking something correctly.

In this case, your sentence is perfectly legit. What you are doing is asking a rhetorical question, because you, the author, are not expecting an answer to your question. Instead you are using your question to make a point.

Actually, they just added a canonical post about this very subject!

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