It belongs to the verb interrogar, which comes from the Latin “interrogare”, a word composed of the prefix “inter” that designates what is located in the middle, and the verb “rogare” that refers to a request. The questioner asks a question, because he has a doubt, an uncertainty. This situation, not clarified or doubtful, is what constitutes a question, and the questioner is also questioned to clarify his doubts.
Questions can have an immediate answer, over time or, directly, have no known answer. If someone questions a person about the weather and this individual wears a watch, they will be able to answer you at that moment, so the question no longer exists. On the other hand, if a woman is on the street with a friend and asks her what the phone number of a third person is, but her friend replies that she has it written down in an address book that is kept at home, the question is not answered. Responds Immediately, although it can be answered when the lady arrives home, looks for the agenda, and contacts the other to answer her question.
Questions are posed in many situations of everyday life because, in general, what happens is not susceptible of a single interpretation and many solutions to our problems are not exposed, but we must look for them and we do not know how. Parents often have questions or concerns about whether the education provided to their children is appropriate.
Friends or lovers may have them on the true intention of the relationship, and so on. In the police field, when an offense is committed, the question is to determine how the event happened, why and by whom. In the academic field, students have questions, for example, about how they will be evaluated, if they understood their lesson well, where to look for information, and so on.
However, no matter how much we advance, it is impossible to answer all the questions, new questions always appear that become new challenges to solve. In fact, there are questions that are presented as big questions, because predictably they do not have or will have a definitive solution: death, where we come from, where we are going and other existential doubts. These questions have a metaphysical component, since they are beyond our understanding but they are inevitable, they are like an innate tendency in the human being.
Fortunately, most of the problems we have are solvable, so the question about them can be solved and a solution found.
The psychological effect of a question provokes two possible reactions: some may paralyze themselves, not knowing how to act and, on the contrary, others understand them as a stimulus, something to face.