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Using 'And' and 'But'

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JulianneQJohnson

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I never thought starting a sentence with "but" or "and" was against the rules. I've always considered it a matter of style. I see it most used and overused in green writers who have not yet developed style. I do not see it used in the published books that I read.

Just because something is grammatically legal doesn't mean it should be used willy-nilly. On occasion, for emphasis, one can get away with it, but I think it's a matter of getting away with it rather than it being super effective. I cannot imagine anyone ever thinking "Oh, look at the masterful way that the writer has started that sentence with a conjunction!"

Personally, I do not begin sentences with conjunctions outside of dialog.
 

pandaponies

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I cannot imagine anyone ever thinking "Oh, look at the masterful way that the writer has started that sentence with a conjunction!"
...Nor can I imagine anyone ever thinking, "Oh, look at the masterful way that the writer has properly started that sentence with a non-conjunction!"
 

dangerousbill

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Starting a sentence with a conjunction is not ungrammatical. It is not actually breaking any rules at all. Teachers who tell their students that it is breaking a rule to do this are either ignorant or lazy (because they don't want to actually teach students when it's appropriate to do this).

I suspect it's because they have to follow a standard curriculum, even if they disagree with it.
 

Roxxsmom

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I suspect it's because they have to follow a standard curriculum, even if they disagree with it.

True. And of course, teachers are expected to teach a huge number of students with less and less support. So sorry, didn't mean to blame all teachers or anything.

But my point is people shouldn't conflate the topic of starting sentences with "and" or "but" with the issue of when or whether it's ever appropriate to break the rules of grammar for effect. Starting a sentence with a conjunction is not actually violating any rule, so arguing whether or not it's ever an acceptable rules violation is pointless.

Just because something is grammatically legal doesn't mean it should be used willy-nilly.

Agreed. You certainly wouldn't want to read prose with one sentence after another containing semicolons, or as compounds with coordinating conjunctions in the middle, or starting with participles or anything else. Varying one's sentence structure and being mindful of your choices is a part of good writing.


I do not see it used in the published books that I read.

Fair enough. I do see it used in the books I read, and fairly often too. First six grabbed randomly off my e-reader. None of these were inside dialog. I wouldn't call any of these writer green or not yet having developed their style, either.

"But worse, I see Queen Desire for what she was: not an evil woman intent on making my little life miserable, but a mother full of ruthless love for her only son." Robin Hobb, Fool's Assassin. (2014)
"But the worst insult came from an older girl with silly ringlets." Amy Tan. The Valley of Amazement. 2014.
"But it is hard to think with getting married to Mr. ____ hanging over my head. Alice Walker. The Color Purple. 1982.
"And what could he do in Tyrosh?" George RR Martin. A Storm of Swords. 2000
"And the King, who by now had almost forgotten the old Queen and had scarcely looked at the baby, agreed and thought no more about it." Naomi Mitchison. Travel Light. 1952.
"And Bayaz was sunk in the very midst of it." Joe Abercrombie. The Last Argument of Kings. p 56. 2008.
"Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn't. Mark Twain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, p 5. 1885.
People can have different tastes. It would be amazing if we didn't. But please be careful telling people they shouldn't do something, or that it's a sign of bad or inexperienced writing.

Something to remember too, is that when something's done well, it's most often pretty invisible unless you're looking for it.
 
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NRoach

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Did you read the links in my above article? No one is saying that rules are pointless, or that one should overuse sentences starting with conjunctions.

They talk about why there's a misconception that doing so is a violation of any usage rule to begin with (when it isn't). They also provide some examples of when and how such usage is useful and effective, and they remind the readers that any literary technique can be overused.

Seriously. Check out some novels (and some technical and scholarly articles for that matter). Nearly everyone does this at least sometime. It is not ungrammatical or a violation of any rule.

Starting a sentence with a conjunction is not ungrammatical. It is not actually breaking any rules at all. Teachers who tell their students that it is breaking a rule to do this are either ignorant or lazy (because they don't want to actually teach students when it's appropriate to do this).

Period.

I didn't see them, but after having gone back and read through them, I'm not seeing much that's all that convincing.

Connectives/conjunctions connect clauses. Sentences aren't clauses, they're sentences. There can obviously be sentences which consist of a single clause, but that doesn't make them the same thing.

The main argument made by those articles is, by and large, an appeal to authority, which isn't a substitute for argument. In looking, you could find citations of pretty much any grammatical form, tons of which aren't generally considered to be correct today.
The other argument was that because not all conjunctions are subordinating, and subordinating conjunctions can't be used to start sentences, the other types of conjunction can be.
That doesn't quite follow, for me.

Just because everyone does this at some point, doesn't mean that it's correct use; everyone misspells receipt (including me, that time) now and then, but no one contests that there's only way way to spell it.

Edit: I'm also pretty confused as to why Albert Einstein was cited as an example of correct English.
 
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Roxxsmom

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It not grammatically incorrect to start a sentence with a conjunction. It just isn't. Not now and not for a very long time.

:Headbang:

If citing style guides, editor's blogs, and the Oxford English Dictionary re correct usage is a meaningless appeal to authority, then what source do you believe is definitive here?
 
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Buffysquirrel

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This isn't a new thing. HG Wells used And and But to start sentences way back when sf was called scientifiction :).
 

Bufty

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Agreed. And almost every other sentence in conversation starts with 'But...'.
 

Chase

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Hmmm. What's the point of bragging about breaking rules which aren't real rules?

It's like boasting about having conversations with passengers while driving:

"I heard drivers shouldn't talk on a phone or text while at the wheel, but I break the law and talk to others in my car. I'm such a renegade!" :D
 

Papaya

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It not grammatically incorrect to start a sentence with a conjunction. It just isn't. Not now and not for a very long time.

:Headbang:

If citing style guides, editor's blogs, and the Oxford English Dictionary re correct usage is a meaningless appeal to authority, then what source do you believe is definitive here?
Before I read your earlier post, I didn't realize this wasn't even a rule. I really wish they would stop teaching non-rules in school. :rant:
 

Roxxsmom

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Interestingly enough, they did not teach this when I was in school (high school, at least, they may have pushed it in grade school, but pretty much everything I learned later trumped grade school). Our senior English teacher actually talked a bit about this and when and how it can be used, and pointed out instances in some of the classic pieces of fiction he assigned.

But that was a great class, and he taught it like a college course with lots of discussion and critical thinking.

I wonder if the current emphasis on standardized testing has forced teachers to dumb down the curriculum and focus on supposedly inviolate rules (even when they're not rules at all), because that's how they're presented on the tests. Which of the following sentences is incorrect? B, because it starts with an "and."
 
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Papaya

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I had rather unfortunate high school teachers, but an absolutely amazing 8th grade teacher who was a writer. I took both an essay and a creative writing class with him, and I don’t remember him telling me not to use conjunctions to start a sentence.

My most recent observation of school curriculum has been hearing what a girl (who is like a sister to me, so I’ve heard a fair amount) was taught in grade school and now high school. She’s starting her senior year next week. I've heard more than one "rule" that was essentially nothing more than that specific teacher's pet peeve. Or at least that's how I was thinking of it. Your theory is kinder. And I'd just as soon give teachers the benefit of the doubt. But that doesn't change how I feel about the appalling standard of education we currently have. :(
 

phantasy

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I use conjunctions for style and flow mainly. Flow is king in my writing and putting in a conjunction speeds the narrative up. I especially like to use it when a character is thinking and things are happening around them. It works well and so far no complaints about it from my betas.
 

Jamesaritchie

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Interestingly enough, they did not teach this when I was in school (high school, at least, they may have pushed it in grade school, but pretty much everything I learned later trumped grade school). Our senior English teacher actually talked a bit about this and when and how it can be used, and pointed out instances in some of the classic pieces of fiction he assigned.

But that was a great class, and he taught it like a college course with lots of discussion and critical thinking.

I wonder if the current emphasis on standardized testing has forced teachers to dumb down the curriculum and focus on supposedly inviolate rules (even when they're not rules at all), because that's how they're presented on the tests. Which of the following sentences is incorrect? B, because it starts with an "and."

I don't think that's the case at all. The "and", "but" rule has been around for a hack of a lot longer than I've been alive. I find it in teaching dating back well over a hundred years.

It comes, I think, from the fact that English teachers do not teach fiction writing, or casual writing, but formal writing.

Nor does standardized testing mean anything is dumbed down. From my experience, the opposite is true. Non-standardized testing almost always results in everything being dumbed down.
 

Jamesaritchie

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It not grammatically incorrect to start a sentence with a conjunction. It just isn't. Not now and not for a very long time.

:Headbang:

If citing style guides, editor's blogs, and the Oxford English Dictionary re correct usage is a meaningless appeal to authority, then what source do you believe is definitive here?

No, it isn't grammatically incorrect. I've never met anyone, including English teachers, who said it was. What they say, and certainly what we were taught in college, is that it's almost always poor writing. Not the same thing.

Being grammatically correct does not in any way mean the writing is good, and this is the case with beginning sentences with conjunctions. Too many writers think grammatical correctness means good writing, and it simply isn't so. Fiction mirrors the real world, and sometimes realism means starting a sentence this way, but when quality of writing is the issue, there's almost always a better way to write the sentence. This is the issue, not whether it is or isn't grammatically correct, and not whether it is or isn't a "rule".
 

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It comes, I think, from the fact that English teachers do not teach fiction writing, or casual writing, but formal writing.

It's not incorrect to start sentences with conjunctions in formal writing either. It may be done for different reasons and for different effect, but it's still "allowed." Style guides are pretty unanimous on this.

Imagine an argumentative piece that never starts a sentence with "but."

The erroneous idea, as I understand it, may stem from 19th century school teachers who dealt with the childish habit of starting too many sentences this way (because kids write just like they talk, and as Bufty noted up thread, people start sentences with "but" a lot) by banning it entirely.

But who knows, really? (I just did it :D) Hard to go back in time and check things like this. It might make a good story, though. Emilia Sloane, a time traveler posing as a 19th century schoolmarm, bent on uncovering the origin of the myths that abound in our modern education system.

What they say, and certainly what we were taught in college, is that it's almost always poor writing.

I'd like to write "poorly" the way Mark Twain, Amy Tan, Alice Walker, Robin Hobb, Joe Abercrombie etc. (and as per the other examples I tossed up) do.

Homework assignment for people with e-readers or e-files of books on your computer: randomly select some of these books and do a search where ". But" and ". And" are the terms. I bet you'll get tons of "hits," and no, they won't all (or even mostly) be inside dialogue either.

Effective prose does not rely on avoiding or embracing any particular sentence structure or literary technique. It's about writing clear, readable paragraphs that are varied enough to have a pleasing pattern and rhythm. Overusing any sentence structure is bad writing.

I'm pretty sure we all agree that a compound sentence (two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction with a comma in front) is "correct" grammatically. It would still be bad writing to have multiple sentences in a row with this construct.
 
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Chase

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It comes, I think, from the fact that English teachers do not teach fiction writing, or casual writing, but formal writing.

Whoa, there, James. The "fact" you cite is more factoid than fact.

For over a quarter century, in high school and colleges, I taught creative writing, business writing, argumentative writing, expository writing, and technical writing, to name a few.

One summer elective course wasn't called "casual writing," but I taught e-mail writing, which is about as casual as it gets.

While I didn't ban and, but, so to begin sentences, I did ding commas immediately following a coordinating conjunction, as if they were adverbs, such as however, then, consequently, also, etcetera. Now, that's just wrong! :D
 
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