And what if he did? Is this something you have a problem with?
This shit makes me think that nothing is more harmful to people’s understanding and use of language than English class. Finer writers than anyone here start sentences with “and”, and I’ve seen (contrary to what my teachers used to tell me) plenty of academic writings in which sentences started with conjunctions.
This is not an issue of grammar anyway; it’s one of style. No meaningful claim can be made that starting a sentence with “and” is ungrammatical; it may make your writing sound more casual (here’s where the style part creeps in) but if you’re writing in a formal register on the SDMB, you got somethin’ wrong with you.
Do it all you like. And you also have permission to split infinitives and end sentences with prepositions. (Those being perhaps the silliest of the arbitrary “rules” of “grammar” that teachers pound into kids’ heads - they were developed in the 1700s out of the silly notion that since such usages were impossible in Latin, they were wrong and immoral in English.)
It’s fine to start a sentence with And as long as you have another sentence before it. But please try not to make your very first sentence at the very beginning start with And. That just doesn’t sound right. And is supposed to connect with what went before it. If there’s nothing before it, nothing to connect to, there’s no point in using And.
I say this because Pink Floyd did this with the spoken words recited in their song “The Great Gig in the Sky” which began
It seems like there’s something missing from the beginning of the song. Annoying. I liked Pink Floyd’s music, but not this misuse of English.
And is a word which should never be used to begin a sentence.
For me-it’s akin to wearing wingtips with tall black socks and shorts. You can do it if you wish, but not I, said the little red hen. 
Sorry folks, I loved English and the rules are hard to forget.
A conjunction functions to link something to something else. In general, they’re used within a sentence to link words, phrases, or clauses. Conjunctive adverbs like therefore or otherwise serve to connect the thought of a complete sentence to the information presented in preceding sentences. Subordinating conjunctions introducing dependent clauses generally have a secondary purpose of linking the thought expressed in that sentence to what has gone before. Coordinating conjunctions should be used sparingly to introduce sentences, but are valuable linking forms that should not be completely avoided due to a fictitious rule. But is a fully acceptable adversative used at the beginning to imply a contrasting relationship between the thought of the sentence it begins and what has preceded: “In general, it is often thought incorrect to begin a sentence with a conjunction. But there are times when it is the correct means of linking two thoughts.”
And, implying no adversative relationship, is a bit trickier to use in good stylish casual English. But it certainly has its proper uses, however hard they may be to spell out analytically. And in those specific instances, it is indeed the correct way to phrase that sentence. (This paragraph exemplifies what it attempts to analyze.)
The reason for the alleged “rule” is junior high-level essays, where students mimic their normal speech pattern by beginning nearly every sentence with “And” to produce a stylistically displeasing result. But the guidance to normally avoid this overuse of “and” turns into a nonexistent “rule” that it should never be done, in the minds of the students who then grow up knowing a “rule” which has never actually been laid down as one.
[i/Harbrace College Handbook*, Eleventh Edition published in 1990, not only allows the use of such conjunctions at the beginning of sentences, but encourages their use in creating sentence variety.
If I were submitting formal papers in college, however, I would avoid using them. I never know when some puffed-up Ph.D., freshly grilled in composition and rhetoric and longing to cut his teeth on professional development returnees, might be made suddenly ill by the sound of frost forming on a window and cast his disgust squarely upon my initial conjunction.
Yours truly,
Zoe
Panty-waisted school marm, retired
Given that the bit you quote is clearly a snippet from a conversation, though…
If I’m not mistaken, these words are not the first time we hear from Roger the Hat (the Floyd roadie who, I believe, admits to having been “really drunk at the time” etc.).
Also keep in mind that DSOM is a kind of neverending record, in that the persistent heartbeat allows it to loop seamlessly. Floyd did something similar, and more explicit with The Wall, which begins with a quiet voice saying “we came in” and ends with the voice saying “This is where”.
Floyd also regularly drops and picks up themes throughout its albums, even across albums (e.g., the seagulls from “Echoes” appearing in “Is There Anybody Out There”).
So I like the use of “And I am not…” in GGITS. Maybe they didn’t think of it at all, but knowing their work, it’s just as likely that they intended the effect of seeming to break into the middle of a conversation.
So as others here have pointed out, it can be used consciously for effect.
Note to Zoe: In my experience, English PhD’s (especially those who specialize in comp/rhet) are some of the least likely people to try to “correct” the non-mistakes that many language mavens love to pounce on. I won’t argue w/ the “puffed-up” charge.
This is a pretty important rule, one which I reminded my students of a lot when I was tutoring college kids on expository writing. They might come to me with some bizarre sentence construction demanded by their professor; I’d tell them that:
- Their professor was full of shit when it came to grammar; and
- Their professor would be the one grading the paper, so go ahead and follow their rules.
I myself had a professor who dinged me on a paper for using “since” as a synonym for “because”: he believed it could only be a synonym for “after.” Since he was the professor, I changed it, but never after then did I respect this pompous fool.
Daniel
Caveat in reply to Left_Hand’s story…
Yeah, I saw a few old-schoolers who enforced “rules” like that, or who objected to using “hopefully” as a disjunct, etc. :mad:
But by and large, most of the profs (at least where I worked) trained students according to “traditional standards” because these kids were going into white-collar workplaces where their writing would be judged by people who believed in the old rules.
The better ones explained why we were doing this, and discussed the issue of standards v. grammaticality in class.
Then again, there were some who actually tried to make their students speak in the style they’d use to write an academic paper. :mad: :mad:
Fair enough; at the same time, many of these rules exist nowhere but in the heads of old-school half-educated prescriptivist grammarians. I have never encountered anyone else who thought that “since” couldn’t be used as a synonym for “because,” for example; nor in my career outside of college have I ever had anyone notice my use of a split infinitive.
Explaining the reasons for using stupid rules is wonderful; but requiring their use without explaining the reasons is, IMO, worse than ignoring the rule altogether.
Daniel
Another writer weighing in here: There’s nothing wrong with starting a sentence with and. Here’s what the 15th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style has to say about it:
Outside of academia, you can’t go wrong following The Chicago Manual of Style.
Generally I see sentences beginning with “And” come from writers with an edgy, conversational style. I think the abruptness of it can direct the reader to adopt the author’s intended rhythm.
In his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (2d ed. 1965), Fowler says that the no “and” at the beginning of a sentence rule is a fainlty lingering superstition. He points out that OED gives examples of this usage dating from the 10th to the 19th century. And he pthat the Bible is full of them.
I frequently recommend Fowler to anyone who starts to tell me that they will get out the thesaurus so that they aren’t using the same word more than once in a paragraph. . . Elegant variation–gotta love it.
English translations of** Homer’s The Iliad ** are full of sentances that begin with ‘And.’
Here are some examples taken at random from the first few pages of the Robert Fagles translation:
*“And with that Achilles stayed his burly hand on the silver hilt and slid the huge blade back in its sheath.” (1.257-258)
“And now from his depths the proud runner groaned…” (1.430)
“And the two walked away among the Argive ships…” (1.411)
“And Thetis answered…” (1.491)*
If it works for Homer, it works for me.
And as if that weren’t enough, Garner calls the notion “rank superstition.” (Bryan Garner, founding member of the Fowler Society and author of A Dictionary of Modern American Usage.)
Remember what I wrote about posts that say “I was taught?” You are a victim of poor teaching. And evidently a willing one, for you’ve chosen not to learn anything since. This does not give your pronouncements on the subject greater weight. Quite the opposite.
There are rules of grammar, but there are no rules of usage (or, better, rhetoric). There exist conventions of usage, however, and bad teachers will often substitute these for teaching nuance. Rules in English are semi-solid; conventions are purely liquid. They change with time and place.
Today’s conventions of formal usage are not the same as those from a generation ago, and much less similar to the ones in force when the bad teachers were themselves being taught by bad teachers. I’ve been a professional writer for 30 years and I’ve written just about every type of prose the mind can conceive. I’m not sure I can come up with a prose type so formal today as to cause me to check whether my sentences begin with an “and” or not.
The bottom line is that there is no such thing as a rule that bans the use of and at the beginning of a sentence. Good (and better and best) writers use it in this way at all times in all formats. And there are no, repeat no, reputable commentators on English who argue otherwise.
Exapno – since it’s a matter of style, and since style is a matter of taste, it’s as legitimate for dances and me not to care for it as it is for you to see it as something devoutly to be desired.
Not as long as you call it a “rule” rather than a “style.” Style I’m perfectly comfortable with: it’s just another name for convention. But the notion that “rules” of usage exist is part of the ignorance that we’re supposed to be devoted to stamping out.