Starting sentences with "But" (and other conjuncts)

[nichewriter]

As someone whose article got rejected recently for starting two sentences with the conjunct "but", I've been digging around for information if it really is grammatically incorrect to do so and if it should be avoided altogether. I'm taking a grammar lab class as part of a copyediting certificate and I've asked the instructor about his take on this matter too

I came up with a couple of interesting reads in defense of starting sentences with "but", "and", and "or":

* http://www.michbar.org/journal/article. ... olumeID=48
* http://michelle-strozykowski.suite101.c ... but-a74404

From William Zinsser (author of On Writing Well): "Many of us were taught that no sentence should begin with "but." If that's what you learned, unlearn it--here is no stronger word at the start. It announces total contrast with what has gone before, and the reader is primed for the change."

~S

Edited to add the following comments from my instructor:

Yes, you can start a sentence with the coordinating conjunctions "and" and "but" for a rhetorical effect. The following is from the New York Times:

Beginning With “But” (or “And”)

Another pet peeve of some After Deadline commenters is the use of “but” or “and” to begin a sentence — as in the third sentence of the previous section. Obviously, I don’t share their aversion.

It shouldn’t be overdone, but using coordinating conjunctions this way can provide a handy and very efficient transition. “But” is certainly preferable in many cases to the stilted “however,” and “and” is simpler than “in addition” or similar phrases.

I’d put this objection in the category of “Miss Thistlebottom’s hobgoblins.” That’s how the former Times language guru Theodore M. Bernstein described overly fastidious rules and usage myths a grade-school English teacher might invoke to keep her pupils’ prose on a very narrow path. (Familiar examples include “Never split an infinitive” and “Never end a sentence with a preposition.”)

Here is another read on the issue:

This is what R.W. Burchfield has to say about this use of and:

There is a persistent belief that it is improper to begin a sentence with And, but this prohibition has been cheerfully ignored by standard authors from Anglo-Saxon times onwards. An initial And is a useful aid to writers as the narrative continues.

~ from The New Fowler's Modern English Usage edited by R.W. Burchfield. Clarendon Press: Oxford, England. 1996. Used with the permission of Oxford University Press.

The same is true with the conjunction but. A sentence beginning with "and" or "but" will tend to draw attention to itself and its transitional function. Writers should examine such sentences with two questions in mind: (1) would the sentence and paragraph function just as well without the initial conjunction? (2) should the sentence in question be connected to the previous sentence? If the initial conjunction still seems appropriate, use it.

Thus, it is perfectly acceptable to use and and but to begin a sentence.

[jak]

Yes, I've had that in rejections too. And I'm getting a lot more rejections than I was in the last two years that I've been here. But the editor's word is law, so I'll be trying to avoid starting my sentences with And and But if they are submitted here. It's a shame because I agree the sentences often lose power when they are changed.

[Lor]

I brought this up in another writer forum and was soundly shot down by the mod who said it was bad grammar and she was unwilling to have a dialog about it. So much for intelligent networking.

Language changes. Best selling novelists begin sentences with "but" and "and." It's perfectly acceptable in mainstream publishing and has been for decades. I'm sure even Strunk & White would make the adjustment and evolve with the times. But, here's the rub. If it's not acceptable here, then it's an easy fix. It's old-fashioned, but along with not using contractions, it is also formal writing . Maybe that's what CC wants from us now. This is something new, I think, or perhaps from one editor.

That said, if you remove all the "ands" and "buts" from the beginning of your sentences, you'll find they didn't need to be there in the first place and that the copy reads perfectly fine without them. This formal writing stuff is a good exercise.

[nichewriter]

Thanks for sharing your insights, jak and Lor. I agree that removing the "But" and the "And" will still make the copy read perfectly, but there are occasions when doing that can lessen the impact of what you're trying to convey. As I mentioned in another post, I've had articles approved in the past with sentences that started with conjunctions, so I'm thinking it's a matter of editorial preference. From now on, though, I'm going to avoid submitting articles here on CC with sentences that start with conjunctions

[carpenjoyce]

I think the moderator who shot down Lor is full of beans and out of touch with changing standards. I start sentences in my cc articles with "But" all the time, and I've never been rejected for it. But keep in mind I'm doing it like I do it here, where putting it all in one sentence would make the whole thing too long. "But" conveys a shade of meaning that relates one sentence to the other. It tends to indicate that the first sentence isn't always true or needs to be qualified. Without it, something is lost.

If you read books from the early part of the twentieth century and before, you'll note that sentences were a lot longer than they are now. Starting a sentence with "But" wasn't really necessary then. Now that we write in sound bites, it is.

Here is what I wouldn't do: "I went to the store. But I forgot the bread." In other words, I only use "but" at the beginning of a sentence where it's necessary to keep sentence lenth manageable.