Starting a sentence with And or But
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- Viviana Pitino
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Re: Starting a sentence with And or But
Imagine the horror when my editor told me I had an addiction: starting sentences with BUT or AND.
I ran a word search and paled. She was so right.
Still I kept some of them because sometimes, they just help you and make sense.
Vi
- e-tasana-williams
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- Ashton
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I think your decision of use should be based on whether you share your story or not. If yes then I would suggest writing as “formally” as possible, because you never hear someone complaining that the grammar was too formal.
I noticed that conjunctions are used to express something less emphatically or to denote surprise, by turning a phrase into a question.
Example
People say this is the worst book ever. And who are we to disagree?
She said no. But why not?
This might just be a preference but this is weak writing to me. I feel that these could be written better without the conjunction.
- Satori
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You were criticized for breaking this rule, and you respond by looking for reasons yet to continue to break it, or to justify breaking it?DennisK wrote:I was taught the same rule, and a number of times, I was criticized for braking it. If we write things like instructional, or legal documents, I suppose adherence to this grammatical style is important. But, (However,) if we need to portray a language as it is spoken, rules can get in the way.
Actually, this subject can turn into a philosophical discussion as there are people who really get their back-hairs up whenever they perceive a broken rule. In the legal or political realm, this question is argued all the way up into the Supreme Court: What takes precedence: the letter of the law, or the law's intent?
- DennisK
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Welcome to the forum, Satori!
Yes, I would continue to brake this rule. A rule must be based in logic.
- LauraMc29
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- katiesquilts
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I'm the exact opposite! I never heard anything about using "and," but "but" can be replaced by words such as "however, on the other hand," etc. so using it is lazy, as my teachers said.Swara Sangeet wrote:I remember learning that starting a sentence with 'and' was wrong, but I don't remember anything about 'but'. Yet it's true that even I have seen such usage in several books. Do they have a poetical license or has the rule been relaxed?
In my opinion, "and" is fine as long as you're using it in dialogue or with a set phrase, so to speak. For example: "And on that note," or, "And so we..."
I mean come on...There are books that have been written with no capital letters, complete disregard for punctuation, the list goes on and on. No one is going to throw a fit if you take a little creative liberty.
- DennisK
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Other than that, I would need a very good reason why that sentence had to be separate from the previous sentence. For example, "I wanted to buy a soda. But they only had Coca-Cola products." Unless that's meant to be a dramatic realization in a book where Coca-Cola is taking over the world, then that could very easily be one sentence. For another example, I would accept a sentence beginning with "but" if there's a paragraph talking about something hypothetical, then beginning the next with a statement saying that it could never happen. I think the fact that it's a shorter, blunter word gives "but" more impact than "however".
Overall, I think it's okay to use them if it's in a character's voice or if it can't easily be merged into the previous sentence, but they should only be used sparingly.
- Dh_
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Literary fiction is about the only genre I can think of where you should keep the rule book close at hand. For everything else, consider your audience and they style they would like to read.