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Interrogative or relative adverb: "how are you" or "how you are"

The following sentence has the words in the wrong order: "He told me how is he getting to the party this evening."

The correct order should be: "He told me how he is getting to the party this evening." 

The reason for the mistake is that the word "how" appears to be a normal interrogative (question-word), which would require the object and verb to be inverted as in, for example, "How are you?" (Not: "How you are?")   

In the sentence above, however, the word "how" is not an interrogative (question-word) but rather what is called a "relative adverb". It is not a question as such, but rather the person is sharing some factual information, namely "how he is getting to the party this evening". 

Here are similar sentences with interrogatives (question-words) that function as relative adverbs or pronouns. 

He told me what his name is. (Not: he told me what is his name)

They asked me where I live (Not: they asked me where do I live) 

They reminded me what time it was. 

Similarly, the headline "How to park your car in London" is not followed by a question mark, because it is not a question. The article is not asking, "How should you park your car in London," but rather sharing information on how to do so. 


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