And and But
I'd like some opinions about the use of the coordinating conjunctions and and but at the beginning of sentences. I recently finished an editing job, and the client wanted me to use The Chicago Manual of Style as a reference, which encourages consistency over tradition in this case. As a reader I'm distracted by the inevitable choppiness this stylistic choice creates. I wonder if there are any other readers out there who are bothered as well.
posted by Musing Mama K (Angie Burgin Kratzer) | 7:13 PM
5 Comments:
I learned that you never started a sentence with "And," or "But." But I do it all the time. AND I have a bad habit of capitalizing incorrectly. But my blog writing is very casual. If I were writing a tech piece I wouldn't do it. A friend of mine says you never start a sentence with "however." However, I see that all the time.
BUT there are some things that drive me crazy. For example, my sister uses "At," and "To," incorrectly. She will say, "I'll call you TO home," or "I left it TO home." (Actually not ever TO, she says it more like, "tuh.") She said the prepositions were interchangable. I said, "Plate and dog are both nouns, but they are not interchangable. I don't want to eat my dinner off a dog."
But thanks for bringing that pain to the surface. And I'll look forward to seeing responses from other readers.
I was taught that and and but were never to begin a sentence. While I generally agree, I think the occasional use of and and but at the beginning of a sentence is acceptable-- especially if one wants to lengthen the pause the reader might normally give to a period.
To consistently begin sentences with coordinating conjunctions would no doubt lead to choppy and hard to follow prose. Overall, I'd stay away from it.
I also learned that you shouldn't start a sentence with "And", "But", or "However". "And" and "But" are commonly used as sentence starters, however, especially in print journalism (local dailies). What bugs me is the use of "however" as a conjunction in place of "but". "However" is really a parenthetical expression that should be separated from the rest of the sentence with commas.
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