I read or was told years ago that it has since become accepted and permissible to begin sentences with the word “And.” Also, Henry Miller did it a great deal, at least in his letters to Anais Nin.
I do this often in my posts and someone recently made a snide remark (which I suspect was directed at me since I’m pretty much the only one I’ve seen doing it) alluding to the impropriety of doing so.
So, since I’ve become comfortably ensconced here in fighting ignorance land I thought I’d better get the real dope from someone who knows. Any grammarians out there who can give me an answer?
It’s about as objectionable as writing a poem that doesn’t rhyme. I’ve no objection to such a sentence. (However, present me an academic paper with such usage and you’ll be struck down.) (And no, I don’t fully justify this dichotomy. But it exists.)
There was a thread in GQ a while ago on appropriate syntactic usage vs. “rules” in which I did a complete aside justifying my own use of “And” to lead in a sentence – I sincerely hope you didn’t see that as a snide snipe at you! (I don’t think you posted to that thread, but I don’t remember.)
Or, to put it another way: “And, Henry Miller did it a great deal…”
You’re not alone - I do it with some regularity.
We should wait on a real grammarian, but I think that’s one of those things that’s technically incorrect, but the rule has been so widely ignored, and by so many well-respected writers (like you and me!), it’s probably ceased to be a “rule.” And anyone who gets snide with you about it is just being a prick.
I don’t usually lead off with ‘and’, but I have been known to use ‘but’ in this capacity with some regularity. I find it useful in situations when I want to convey (A and B) (but also C) as distinctly and imporantly different from (A) (and B but also C). Using commas in a case like this would be nigh-disastrous, and a semicolon is too easily ignored or misinterpreted for my purposes.
I can see a similar justification for beginning a sentence with ‘and’ to serve this same purpose, so I’d say, yeah, you’re justified…in my eyes, anyhow.
I guess I qualify as a “real grammarian” – English PhD, examined in composition and rhetoric, taught college-level composition, now work as a full-time writer and part-time proofer.
Beginning a sentence with “and” is perfectly grammatical in English, in that it passes both the “native speaker/writer” test and the common usage test. (That is, native speakers/writers do it all the time.)
To give a counter-example, contemporary English does not allow sentences that begin with “Went I…”. That would be truly ungrammatical.
Which leaves us with another question – Does it follow accepted standards?
As G-man mentioned, this construction is explicitly not standard in certain formats, such as many (though not all) college- or professional-level papers.
As of yet, there are no accepted standards for public message boards that deal with this sort of thing, and hopefully there never will be.
So, in short, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with starting sentences with “and” on a message board.
There’s really no reason not to begin a sentence with “And” anywhere else, either. It’s not grammar, but (like most questions about “grammar” around here), rather a question of style. Some highly formal styles forbid it, but they’re the same people that object if you split an infinitive. :rolleyes: But these “rules” are just prejudices.
Thank you, O learned one. I shall put your answer in my quiver of defensatory arrows.
And thanks to you, too, Roland.
(And to keep from filling up the thread with messages of thanks, let me now thank anyone who would like to contribute further. I appreciate the help all of you have to offer.)
Absolutely nothing wrong with beginning a sentence with “And.” If you deem that the thoughts being expressed require a greater pause than a comma requires, a new sentence is perfectly acceptable. And the same rule applies to “but.” IANAG, but I’ve read this in works by experts in the field.
It is a sad, sad thing to say, but in every thread ever started in GQ that began with the words, “I was taught that…” whatever was taught is just not so.
Conversely, every thread that begins with “despite what I was taught…” turns out to be correct.
Heh–just today I was dealing with this issue. Our board president had written a fundraising letter and passed it around to staff to review. Our PR person had changed one sentence, something like,
to the abominable,
I changed it back, at which point she snippily informed me that you can’t start a sentence with “And.” I told her she was all wet, and that starting a sentence with “Plus” was even worse, so she claimed she was just following AP guidelines.
As others have said, starting a sentence with “and” isn’t bad grammar, but is possibly bad style.
At the very least, you should consider starting a sentence with “and” casual writing, and you probably shouldn’t do it, just to avoid annoying people who don’t like it.
Of course, feel free to contradict the coding master, grasshoppers. Those sample usage notes are pretty incoherent when they lack italics. Were I worth my grammargeek salt, I’d go through the notes and add 'em back in. Since I’m a slack-ass excuse for Mrs. Dash Lite, I’ll just tell you to follow the links.
To hell with the panty-waisted school-marms who don’t like it. They should grow some skin and learn not to be annoyed by people who don’t share their quirks.
Someone’s got to step up to the plate and be a prick (sic) about this – it might as well be me.
I don’t care for sentences beginning with “and” or “but,” and I extend my animus to sentences that begin with “however.” (If you move the latter over a clause or two, however, I’m fine with it.)
As several of you have noted, it’s not about grammar, since the construction is perfectly intelligible, but about usage. I’m not going to say I never do it, but I will say that if I read over what I just wrote and notice that I did do it, I’ll rewrite the offending sentence.
I will gladly go out of my way to annoy any and all of the misbegotten mongrelly pack I call the illiterate pedants who do not understand how the English language works but are happy to shoot their mouths off on the subject.
If they want respect or even recognition then let them work as hard to master the subject as I have. Until then, nothing they say or do deserves anything other than contempt.
My Little_Brown_Handbook says it’s okay, sure. It does advise caution, since it’s easy to end up with a sentence fragment (which is all right, too, if done on purpose for effect, and preferably sparingly in formal writing).
