As a followup to last week’s post about beginning sentences with “and,” let me just add one last point for the benefit of those who, for whatever reason, believe that their high school English teacher is right and everyone else is wrong.
From The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition (2003):
There is a widespread belief—one with no historical or grammatical foundation—that it is an error to begin a sentence with a conjunction such as and, but, or so. In fact, a substantial percentage (often as many as 10 percent) of the sentences in first-rate writing begin with conjunctions. It has been so for centuries, and even the most conservative grammarians have followed this practice.
Had enough yet? No? Then let’s hear from Charles Allen Lloyd, from his 1938 book We Who Speak English: And Our Ignorance of Our Mother Tongue:
Next to the groundless notion that it is incorrect to end an English sentence with a preposition, perhaps the most wide-spread of the many false beliefs about the use of our language is the equally groundless notion that it is incorrect to begin one with “but” or “and.” As in the case of the superstition about the prepositional ending, no textbook supports it, but apparently about half of our teachers of English go out of their way to handicap their pupils by inculcating it. One cannot help wondering whether those who teach such a monstrous doctrine ever read any English themselves.
Now, this wouldn’t be such a big deal if so many people weren’t absolutely convinced of the veracity of the no-conjunctions-beginning-a-sentence hoax. As Lloyd suggests, to stubbornly insist on obeying such a “rule” against all evidence to the contrary is to handicap the writer. And that makes for bad writing.
There. I’m done now.
by Spimbi