starting a sentence with and
minimus
James Hogg
> Is it ok to start a sentence with "and" ?
Yes, but don't do it too often.
--
James
Bertel Lund Hansen
> Is it ok to start a sentence with "and" ?
And what should be the problem with that?
Any style element can be used too much or in a disturbing way,
but I see no reason to avoid sentences that begin with "and",
"or", "but" or similar words in principle.
I suspect that the 'rule' stems from well-meaning teachers who
advised pupils that overdid a certain effect, where the pupils
only remembered an amputated version of the advice.
In Danish one may find precisely the same attitude.
--
Bertel, Denmark
Marius Hancu
> Is it ok to start a sentence with "and" ?
You need a reason to express continuity, flow, in some way or another,
wrt previous context.
Marius Hancu
Richard Chambers
"James Hogg" <Jas....@gOUTmail.com> wrote in message
news:heh0qv$heb$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> minimus wrote:
>> Is it ok to start a sentence with "and" ?
>
> Yes, but don't do it too often.
And use a capital "A".
Richard Chambers Leeds UK.
Richard Chambers
Amongst those writers who self-impose the unnecessary and pedantic rule,
many resort to starting their sentences with "Also" instead of "And", and
"However" instead of "But". The resort to these words can become equally
repetitive. As James Hogg has already pointed out, your priority should be
to try to avoid the boring repetition of the same starting word for all your
sentences. It does not matter whether this is a repetition of "And" or of
"Also". Alternate them, and throw in the occasional "Moreover",
"Furthermore", "Additionally", etc, for variety.
Another fault that crops up when a writer self-imposes a ban on starting a
sentence with "And", is that the sentence he is writing often becomes too
long as a result. It is far better to start a sentence with "And", thus
splitting a long sentence into two, than to allow the alternative of writing
a sentence that is too long to be easily comprehensible.
Pedantic rules are good when properly applied. However, good writing always
weighs the benefits of complying with the rule against the advantages of
breaking it. Where the advantages outweigh the benefits, one should never
hesitate to break the rule. The schoolmasters who taught you when you were
young were not gods.
Richard Chambers Leeds UK.
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
Unless your name is William Blake and you are a poet.
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/and-did-those-feet-in-ancient-time/
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
Pablo
> Is it ok to start a sentence with "and" ?
"And there was light". Load of old bollocks I know, but a fairly old book.
--
Pablo
Donna Richoux
> El Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:08:50 +0100, minimus escribi�:
>
> > Is it ok to start a sentence with "and" ?
>
> "And there was light". Load of old bollocks I know, but a fairly old book.
You're almost right. The Bible Gateway site has, for the King James
version:
Genesis 1:3
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
That particular phrase was not punctuated as if it were a sentence. But
the overall sentence does begin with another "And," and so do many other
sentences in that chapter of Genesis. See:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=KJV
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Roland Hutchinson
> On Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:34:28 -0800 (PST), Marius Hancu
> <marius...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Nov 24, 11:08 am, "minimus" <mini...@live.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> Is it ok to start a sentence with "and" ?
>>
>>You need a reason to express continuity, flow, in some way or another,
>>wrt previous context.
>>
> Unless your name is William Blake and you are a poet.
> http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/and-did-those-feet-in-ancient-time/
Contrariwise, I feel that Blake _is_ trying to "express continuity, in
some way or other, with respect to previous context". Starting wiht
"And..." at once establishes that intent and draws the reader into the
context (which the reader's mind supplies if it knows the legend to which
Blake is alluding).
--
Roland Hutchinson
He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba,"
... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.
--Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ )
Eric Walker
> Is it ok to start a sentence with "and" ?
Yes. And also with "But".
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker, Owlcroft House
http://owlcroft.com/english/
Stan Brown
>
> Is it ok to start a sentence with "and" ?
And why wouldn't it be?
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Shikata ga nai...
Donna Richoux
> Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:08:50 +0100 from minimus <min...@live.co.uk>:
> >
> > Is it ok to start a sentence with "and" ?
>
> And why wouldn't it be?
Cute, but you have to admit that there has existed strong advice against
doing so, which answers the question you probably weren't asking. The
first one I locate in Google Books:
A sentence should not commence with the conjunctions
and, for, or hammer ; but may do so with but, now,
and moreover.
Title Advanced course of composition and rhetoric: a
series of practial lessons on the origin, history,
and pecularities of the English language ... Adapted
to self-instruction, and the use of schools and
colleges
Author George Payn Quackenbos
Publisher D. Appleton and Co., 1864
[Spot the OCR error.]
Eric Walker
[...]
> Cute, but you have to admit that there has existed strong advice against
> doing so . . . .
No, we don't. There has existed weak advice. There has existed
similarly weak advice against ending sentences with prepositions and
splitting infinitives.
To quote Follett:
A prejudice lingers from the days of schoolmarmish rhetoric that a
sentence should not begin with 'and'. The supposed rule is without
foundation in grammar, logic, or art.
Which, I reckon, cover the ground between them.
Peter Moylan
> Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>
>> Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:08:50 +0100 from minimus <min...@live.co.uk>:
>>> Is it ok to start a sentence with "and" ?
>> And why wouldn't it be?
>
> Cute, but you have to admit that there has existed strong advice against
> doing so, which answers the question you probably weren't asking. The
> first one I locate in Google Books:
>
> A sentence should not commence with the conjunctions
> and, for, or hammer ; but may do so with but, now,
> and moreover.
What's wrong with starting a sentence with hammer?
I have a vague memory of seeing classical Greek text where every second
sentence started with "kai de", meaning "and but".
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
Richard Chambers
> Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:08:50 +0100 from minimus <min...@live.co.uk>:
>>
>> Is it ok to start a sentence with "and" ?
>
> And why wouldn't it be?
This is quite gratuitous, designed to offend and provoke pedants. What is
the difference between what you have written and the shorter "Why wouldn't
it be?".
Richard Chambers Leeds UK.
Donna Richoux
> On Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:33:26 +0100, Donna Richoux wrote:
>
> > Cute, but you have to admit that there has existed strong advice against
> > doing so . . . .
>
> No, we don't. There has existed weak advice. There has existed
> similarly weak advice against ending sentences with prepositions and
> splitting infinitives.
When someone says, "Don't do it," I call that strong advice. They
stated it strongly. Sure, it could be bad advice, or no longer believed,
or based on error, or whatever. The people who gave it said "Don't do
it," not a weak "Well, maybe you really shouldn't..."
These rules were stated firmly enough and just often enough that we
still hear about them now and then. That was my point.
I can imagine various other senses of "weak advice" besides "stated
weakly" but I don't know which sense you meant. Advice that was never
held by a majority, perhaps? Advice that was poorly constructed, not on
a firm foundation, and not lasting?
--
Donna Richoux
John Varela
The difference is that he started the sentence with "and".
--
John Varela
Trade NEWlamps for OLDlamps for email
R H Draney
>
>Donna Richoux wrote:
>>
>> A sentence should not commence with the conjunctions
>> and, for, or hammer ; but may do so with but, now,
>> and moreover.
>
>What's wrong with starting a sentence with hammer?
That's a good way to damage the alternator...when the ignition switch fails, you
may start a sentence with an insulated screwdriver....r
--
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
An optometrist asks whether you see the glass
more full like this?...or like this?
Prai Jei
continuum:
> Is it ok to start a sentence with "and" ?
Plenty of examples in the Bible. That's good enough for me.
--
ξ:) Proud to be curly
Interchange the alphabetic letter groups to reply
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<pvstownse...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>minimus set the following eddies spiralling through the space-time
>continuum:
>
>> Is it ok to start a sentence with "and" ?
>
>Plenty of examples in the Bible. That's good enough for me.
Unfortunately the Bible does not start with:
Genesis 1 Verse 0
And then God decided to create a Universe.
James Hogg
> On Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:16:58 +0000, Prai Jei
> <pvstownse...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>> minimus set the following eddies spiralling through the space-time
>> continuum:
>>
>>> Is it ok to start a sentence with "and" ?
>> Plenty of examples in the Bible. That's good enough for me.
>
> Unfortunately the Bible does not start with:
>
> Genesis 1 Verse 0
>
> And then God decided to create a Universe.
No, you have to read all the way to the start of verse 2 before you
encounter a sentence beginning with "And". That's the KJV, of course.
All the "And"s have disappeared in the Revised English Bible.
--
James
Prai Jei
continuum:
> No, you have to read all the way to the start of verse 2 before you
> encounter a sentence beginning with "And". That's the KJV, of course.
> All the "And"s have disappeared in the Revised English Bible.
Revised English Travesty. All those ands are there in the Hebrew original,
the modern versions kowtow to modern English usage.
Look how GNB handles the story of the princely offerings sorry - er - um -
how do you make an adjective out of "leader"? - offerings in Numbers
chapter 7, undoing the sacred example of a JOINed database and presenting
the two original data tables instead. Give me the repetitive original, so
useful to visualise when programming data-intensive computer systems.
Prai Jei
space-time continuum:
> On Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:34:28 -0800 (PST), Marius Hancu
> <marius...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Nov 24, 11:08 am, "minimus" <mini...@live.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> Is it ok to start a sentence with "and" ?
>>
>>You need a reason to express continuity, flow, in some way or another,
>>wrt previous context.
>>
> Unless your name is William Blake and you are a poet.
> http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/and-did-those-feet-in-ancient-time/
Didn't Blake tend to use & instead of And?
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<pvstownse...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>Peter Duncanson (BrE) set the following eddies spiralling through the
>space-time continuum:
>
>> On Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:34:28 -0800 (PST), Marius Hancu
>> <marius...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On Nov 24, 11:08 am, "minimus" <mini...@live.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Is it ok to start a sentence with "and" ?
>>>
>>>You need a reason to express continuity, flow, in some way or another,
>>>wrt previous context.
>>>
>> Unless your name is William Blake and you are a poet.
>> http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/and-did-those-feet-in-ancient-time/
>
>Didn't Blake tend to use & instead of And?
Yes, but not at the start of a sentence, according to the book of his
poetry and prose that I have.
And did those feet in ancient time
....
Final verse:
....
In England's green & pleasant land.
CDB
> Peter Duncanson (BrE) wrote:
>> Prai Jei wrote:
>>> minimus wrote:
>>>
>>>> Is it ok to start a sentence with "and" ?
>>> Plenty of examples in the Bible. That's good enough for me.
>>
>> Unfortunately the Bible does not start with:
>>
>> Genesis 1 Verse 0
>>
>> And then God decided to create a Universe.
>
> No, you have to read all the way to the start of verse 2 before you
> encounter a sentence beginning with "And". That's the KJV, of
> course. All the "And"s have disappeared in the Revised English
> Bible.
Without going into the details, because I can't, I remember being told
that the effect of starting an utterance with "ve" (and), in the
Hebrew of Genesis, was to shift the aspect of the verb from perfect to
imperfect, or the reverse. "And there was light" is "vayehi 'or",
with the verb in the imperfect aspect: therefore we are to read the
words as if they were in the perfect, as meaning that light appeared
suddenly and definitively.
>
That's probably why the "and"s disappeared in the revision, and why
it's risky to refer to foreign languages for examples of English
usage.
.
*Dare I say at this point that there is a wikiparticle on the subject?
They call it the "waw of reversal", but it seems to be the same thing
they tried to din into me back then.
>
They don't seem very clear on the concept of aspects, referring to the
perfect and imperfect as tenses. They are that in modern Hebrew
(perfect for past tense, imperfect for future tense, present pariciple
for present tense), but I don't remember hearing that the imperfect
referred only to the future in Biblical Hebrew. And God knew that I
am no expert, however.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waw-consecutive
Jerry Friedman
> James Hogg set the following eddies spiralling through the space-time
> continuum:
>
> > No, you have to read all the way to the start of verse 2 before you
> > encounter a sentence beginning with "And". That's the KJV, of course.
> > All the "And"s have disappeared in the Revised English Bible.
>
> Revised English Travesty. All those ands are there in the Hebrew original,
> the modern versions kowtow to modern English usage.
Lots and lots at Language Log recently on "and" at the beginning of
sentence.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1808
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1872
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1875
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1876
That last has comments on "and" in Bible translations. Even the King
James version took out some waw-conversives or whatever you want to
call them.
--
Jerry Friedman
Eric Walker
[...]
> When someone says, "Don't do it," I call that strong advice. . . .
Surely much depends on who "someone" is? If some sources give some
advice while most credible sources say nothing about it, or say its
opposite, then I think it fair to say that the advice is weak.
Stan Brown
<richard.cham...@ntlworld.net>:
>
> Stan Brown wrote
>
> > Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:08:50 +0100 from minimus <min...@live.co.uk>:
> >>
> >> Is it ok to start a sentence with "and" ?
> >
> > And why wouldn't it be?
>
> This is quite gratuitous, designed to offend and provoke pedants.
I'm a pedant myself, but I know that it's fine to begin a sentence
with a conjunction, just as it's fine to end one with a preposition.
A pedant who is "offend[ed] and provoke[d]" by the starting of a
sentence with "and" is wrong.
Chuck Riggs
<em...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:20:21 +0100, Donna Richoux wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>> When someone says, "Don't do it," I call that strong advice. . . .
>
>Surely much depends on who "someone" is? If some sources give some
>advice while most credible sources say nothing about it, or say its
>opposite, then I think it fair to say that the advice is weak.
I consider the source and the subject matter of the advice.
--
Regards,
Chuck Riggs,
An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE
Prai Jei
> I have dim memories of something called the "waw-conversive"*.
> Without going into the details, because I can't, I remember being told
> that the effect of starting an utterance with "ve" (and), in the
> Hebrew of Genesis, was to shift the aspect of the verb from perfect to
> imperfect, or the reverse. "And there was light" is "vayehi 'or",
> with the verb in the imperfect aspect: therefore we are to read the
> words as if they were in the perfect, as meaning that light appeared
> suddenly and definitively.
>>
> That's probably why the "and"s disappeared in the revision, and why
> it's risky to refer to foreign languages for examples of English
> usage.
> .
> *Dare I say at this point that there is a wikiparticle on the subject?
> They call it the "waw of reversal", but it seems to be the same thing
> they tried to din into me back then.
>>
> They don't seem very clear on the concept of aspects, referring to the
> perfect and imperfect as tenses. They are that in modern Hebrew
> (perfect for past tense, imperfect for future tense, present pariciple
> for present tense), but I don't remember hearing that the imperfect
> referred only to the future in Biblical Hebrew. And God knew that I
> am no expert, however.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waw-consecutive
My Hebrew grammar ("Teach Yourself Biblical Hebrew" calls
it "waw-consecutive" and stresses that it can only be used if no other
words come between the verbs. Under these circumstances the verbs are
prefixed with waw and are in the "opposite" form (perfect with imperfect
meaning or imperfect with perfect meaning).
Once there has been anything else, even a direct object, between the verbs,
waw-consecutive is no longer applicable and the next verb must be in
the "correct" (perfect or imperfect) form.
KJV English tends to follow Hebrew usage a bit too literally. Contemporary
English usage (e.g. Spenser or Shakespeare) will have a notable lack of
sentences beginning with "And". Presumably the Revisers sought to rephrase
everything in contemporary English.
Arthur Arthur
>> imperfect, or the reverse. "And there was light" is "vayehi 'or",
>> with the verb in the imperfect aspect: therefore we are to read the
>> words as if they were in the perfect, as meaning that light appeared
>> suddenly and definitively.
>> They don't seem very clear on the concept of aspects, referring to the
>> perfect and imperfect as tenses. They are that in modern Hebrew
>> (perfect for past tense, imperfect for future tense, present pariciple
>> for present tense), but I don't remember hearing that the imperfect
>> referred only to the future in Biblical Hebrew. And God knew that I
>> am no expert, however.
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waw-consecutive
> My Hebrew grammar ("Teach Yourself Biblical Hebrew" calls
> it "waw-consecutive" and stresses that it can only be used if no other
> words come between the verbs. Under these circumstances the verbs are
> prefixed with waw and are in the "opposite" form (perfect with imperfect
> meaning or imperfect with perfect meaning).
>
> Once there has been anything else, even a direct object, between the
> verbs,
> waw-consecutive is no longer applicable and the next verb must be in
> the "correct" (perfect or imperfect) form.
>
> KJV English tends to follow Hebrew usage a bit too literally. Contemporary
> English usage (e.g. Spenser or Shakespeare) will have a notable lack of
> sentences beginning with "And". Presumably the Revisers sought to rephrase
> everything in contemporary English.
And you can take that to the bank.
(And "waw" is also an Arabic conjunction.)
Yusuf B Gursey
waw is the letter that represents the consonantal skeleton of the
conjunction wa- (normally written as preposed to the following word).
arabic does not have the grammatical form "waw consecutive" but both
arabic and hebrew (at least in its biblical form) use the conjunction
wa- "and" in the beginning of sentences rather frequently.
DKleinecke
In Arabic wa- functions here as what I would call a discourse particle
(it is also used a regular conjunction elsewhere). There is a parallel
discourse particle fa- with mostly different but partly overlapping
usages (it is not used as a conjunction elsewhere). In my analysis of
Arabic narrative text I isolate a large number of these discourse
particles. Since the older grammarians did not work in terms of
discourse particles I don't get much help from the classic grammars -
east or west of Arabic and the whole analysis is a work in progress.
I haven't looked at Hebrew for a long time but I have the impression
that grammars of Hebrew want to consider what I would classify as a
discourse particle (w-) as part of the verb form. No real problem here
- multiple differing analyses are always possible. But the Hebrew
tradition may be missing some significant nuances if it neglects
discourse structure.
Yusuf B Gursey
it's usually translatable as "so" but it has some grammatical
functions that are best left untranslated.