Writing Tip #1

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Un-learning what they taught you in grade school regarding starting a sentence with a conjunction and ending one with a preposition...

This is taken directly from my editing handbook, The Chicago Manual of Style--it's "The" authority on print media (with over 950 pages).

5.191 (p. 193) 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. Charles Allen Lloyd's 1938 words fairly sum up the situation as it stands even today: "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 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 he 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."

Isn't that the greatest news you've ever heard of? And won't it be fun to use?

(**By the way, as an editor, I never "edit" people's speech because spoken/conversational English is considerably different than written. It's causal, colloquial, and personal. Therefore, I don't edit emails either. And I don't like it when people knowingly or unknowingly belittle other grown people by trying to correct another's conversational English. It's not becoming. And it's rude. Don't fall into that trap.)

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