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after seeing them lauded by languagehat

Yes, Steve is a great language blogger. (I see I mentioned Wardhaugh in my comment to the entry linked to; I learned about him via Geoff Pullum's entry on Language Log.)


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Is it OK to use "and" to begin a sentence if you're using it as a verb?

<Grin> I wonder if and is an adverb in try and V constructions?


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>Is it OK to use "and" to begin a sentence if you're using it as a verb?

OR the result with 11111.

-joe (posts, that is) friday

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Originally Posted By: tsuwm

OR the result with 11111.

-joe (posts, that is) friday


Too true. And then some.

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Here is the text of Archbishop Wulfstan's early 11th century Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, considered one of the masterworks of English rhetoric. It contains 80 sentences. Thirty-eight of them begin with the word and.

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Just thought I'd bring this back up. Recently ran into this old post from Mark Lieberman at Language Log on beginning sentences with and.

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I've always thought twice before doing so, but I am not so rigid that I would not. I do find, however, that often the "And" may be removed and still have the meaning, intent and grace of the writing remain intact, in which case it is not necessary.

"But this rule has been ridiculed by grammarians for decades,"

I realize he was trying to make a point (and a funny), but I think the "But" can be replaced with "Yet" and not break any rules (or is there a rule against "yet"?) whilst retaining all the meaning. Good editing requires the removal of the unnecessary, the redundant and the superfluous. ;0)

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 Originally Posted By: Bigwig Rabbit
An analogy might be the use of the prefix "dis" (as I mentioned in a previous thread) in place of "dys" by folk etymology for a word like diskenisia, properly spelled dyskenisia, but commonly used inappropriately


\:D ROFL. Are you kidding? Since when has the word dyskenisia ever been used in folk-anything? Folk don't know what it means, let alone its etymology.

AND (ha), actually it's spelled dyskinesia!

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Thirty-eight of them begin with the word and.

I've always thought that particles like this were a kind of punctuation in non-metrical oral literature. Beginning a sentence with and or but indicates that one sentences has stopped: sort of a rhetorical version of a period (or full stop).

Also, how does one handle the sentences to be coordinated if they are distributed between two writers?

John said "Do not end a sentence with a preposition."

"But better writers than you did it all the time!" Mary replied.


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And sentences ending with and?

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