Is this question grammatically correct?

Not being a word-smith nazi I will go out on a limb and say either way works, one has a contraction and one does not. Could be wrong though.

How about… Wasn’t he at home???

@JustPlainBarb here you’ve spotted the conundrum. “Wasn’t he at home?” is an abbreviation of “Was not he at home?” but when you say it like that it sounds totally wrong.

My suspicion is they’re both grammatically correct but to say “Was not he at home?” is archaic.

“Was he not at home?” I’ve used questions phrased in this manner before, and it sounds fine. The first one sounds terrible as if you copied a translated version from a foreign language into english.

@RandomMrdan I agree – it sounds like something that might come out of Google Translate.

@downtide Then I would just ask… “Was he at home?” The not isn’t even necessary.

Both are correct, although the first is a bit archaic.

It is grammatically correct, though uncommon. Consider the following constructions:

“Does not he see my ways, and count all my steps?”
—Job 31:4 (King James Version)

“Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”
—John F. Kennedy

If you can a sentence with a contraction, you can start it with the uncontracted form. Just because you can, however, does not mean you should. Phrases like “was he not” came about as people decided that “was not he” felt awkward. In Kennedy’s famous phrase, there is no awkwardness is saying “ask not.” In the Bible passage, there is some awkwardness to “does not.” That is why most modern translations change it to “does he not.”

“Was he not at home?” seems less awkward than “Was not he at home?” although it seems to me that “Wasn’t he at home?” would be the phrasing commonly spoken. Depending on the context, I would probably write “Was he at home?”

“Was he at home?” and “Was he not at home?” do express different things, though. The latter carries an implication that the former does not. It latter reveals a presumption on behalf of the speaker that the referent of “he” was or could have been expected to be at home. The former reveals no such presumption.

I agree, SavoirFaire. Could “Was not he at home?” mean the same as “Was he not at home?” in a poetical sense?

“Wasn’t he at home” is perfectly acceptable. “Was not” is also but sounds awkward in common parlance.

@woodcutter; May I put in a word for not trivializing “nazi,” which has obscene implications and should not apply to wordsmithing. How about “stickler” instead? Or “wordsmith,” a very nice word, which does say it all, without needing a modifier?

“Was not he” has a tendency to. make one sound a bit like Yoda speaking.

So if the Yoda-effect is not what you’re going for, then its best to avoid it :)

A hearty second here to Gail’s reminder that “Nazi” is far too strong a term for such uses. By tossing it around so lightly we wrongly trivialize an evil that stands alone. People who are careful about their use of language are not Nazis.

@Bill1939 Yes, thank you for pointing that out. “Was he not home?” and “Was not he home?” both carry the same implications. As such, they express the same thing. I think you are also correct to suggest that a poetic use is most likely.