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Shakespeare's Monkeys

Infinite Monkeys. Infinite Typewriters.

More in Blog of the Amazing Monkey of Liberty

And another thing..

A rant

I wonder, why has if become acceptable to start sentences with conjunctions? Several major newspapers have found this to be acceptable practice. I noticed this especially in the Wall Street Journal. I understand that folks may feel that writing closer to how we speak may be an acceptable trend, I do not agree. There are many speaking conventions (e.g. y'all here in the U.S. ) that do not carry over to the written word. And I excuse poetry as the form uses many unconventional structures to an  intended effect.




The prior sentence is exactly the type of example I have seen. The "And" I included in the beginning could be removed with no change in intent.  Read the sentence again while ignoring the "And" and you can see there is no change.



This has been a pet peeve of mine lately as I work in the business world where actual sentence and conveying thought in a professional manner is frowned upon and just plain confuses people.


1- Vidalia on Oct. 19 2008

And I do think you have a point. But the sentences are grammatically correct. However, it does tend to drive people insane.

V

2- Leanne on Oct. 19 2008

In poetry I can live with it -- up to a point -- but the number of people who are grammatically incompetent is quite disturbing.  Grammatically convoluted is a completely different story; this makes me happy

If I see another story about police seeking "three armed men" or similar, I may just set someone on fire.

4- Laurie on Oct. 19 2008

And I am guilty for doing that of which you speak!

5- Anstey on Oct. 20 2008

wouldn't it be three-armed men?

6- Anstey on Oct. 20 2008

The key to business writing is that it be convoluted enough to ensure everyone is confused -- so as not to finish tasks so quickly that it looks like there's not enough work to go around.

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