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Starting With A Conjunction

Certain Schools of Thought emphasize that you should never start a sentence with the use of a conjunction such as 'And' or 'But', yet many writers do. What do you think - does it matter?

Conjunction With Starting

I always try not to do that when writing, and usually I can work around it with semi colons or starting a new sentence. When I went to school, starting a sentence with a conjuction was heavily frowned upon, so that philosophy has stuck with me ever since. It makes perfect sense to me and I see its use as a lazy shortcut.

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There is also the habit that many of us have of ending a sentence with a preposition (?).

"I don't know where you come from," Vs. "I don't know from whence you come."

As our language has become much more informal, both of these "No-nos" Have become more common. I think it is because English becomes more stilted, formal, and archaic if we try to stricly enforce these two rules. When we focus on the rules, sometimes we get in the way of the messages.

For example, the use of "Whom" Vs "Who". Since most of us don't speak this way, and strict observance of the grammar rules require some of these more archaic constructions, we tend to avoid the grammar rules.

Personally, I tend to write quite similar to the way I talk (Maybe I use a better choice of words though, writing). But my grammar and construction is, I think, very similar.

Conjunction With Starting

I do it a lot. But (whoops! did it again...) there are worse things that can happen in the grammar department, I suppose. Spelling is more my forte than grammar.

Our language becomes more corrupt all the time, and I get irritated when I see or hear or read a professional journalist misuse the language upon which they make a living (like pronouncing "often" with a hard "t" or using "a" instead of "an" in front of words beginning with vowels... ).

IMO
Roz

Conjunction With Starting

Hey, FarSeer, in New England the proper pronounciation for often includes a hard "t"

I hate to see people end sentences with prepositions. To me this is even a worse offense than starting a sentence with a conjunction. It is a result of being lazy. It takes work and forethought to ensure you sentences don't end with a preposition.

When you start a sentence with a conjunction, you have just ended the previous sentence where you should have included a comma. I am not sure that is lazy as it is with the preposition.

Starting With A Conjunction

This reminds me of old school, however, do you know that a lot of professional writers do not follow the rules you are making? I remember once having on of my books read by a former Editor of a National Newspaper and he remarked that I should use certain words in place of others - when I commented that it would be grammatically incorrect he said something like "Yes, but it sounds better". You know what, in certain cases he was actually right. I guess he knew that not every rule had to be enforced so rigidly that it sacrificed flavor.

Starting With Conjunction

Well, it only sounds better because we have become lazy with the language. If we always wrote and spoke properly, then proper would sound best. To me, that is no excuse for improper writing. Now, if you are writing a fictional piece and you are creating dialog, then in that case, you should be more concerned about how people would actually speak than you should be with proper grammar. However, otherwise, I think proper grammar should prevail.

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Oh boy,you all made me feel like an old shoe. Well, to tell you the truth, I just write in whatever way, I know that just because English is not my native tongue, it is not excuse to try to learn it properly, shame on me. When I was living in Argentina I was a journalist and my teachers always admire my writing and choose of vocabulary in my essays and I wish I could have the same ability in English. The thing is that sometimes English can be pretty complicated. Let me give you an example, we went out today with my family and one of my neighbors said : "Long time no see". I heard this expression before, but it doesn't make sense to me, it sounds like Tarzan speaking 'No see, no eat' know what I mean?.