Rant Time!!

[ZeroBike]

Has anyone else noticed that it is becoming more and more common to see  people starting sentences with conjunctions like "And" and "But".

I read an article from the online telegraph and literally every other sentence began with a conjunction.

This trend is grammatically incorrect.  By definition, a sentence cannot begin with a conjunction as a conjunction is used to join phrases together; at the beginning of a sentence there is nothing that can be joined.

To me it reads like text speak and leads me to believe that the writer is an illiterate idiot.

I have been noticing it more and more over the last few months and whilst I realise that people will perhaps get a little sloppy when writing on forums, there is huge difference between being a little sloppy and starting every other sentence with a conjunction.  The former is somewhat acceptable whilst the latter shows an inability to write in complete sentences.

Are people getting dumber or is this just some kind of literary fashion that I don't get?

By the way, this isn't aimed at anyone here but I have just been on several other sites. And they were all doing it. But I couldn't understand y som1 wud do dat. 

[triaesthete]

What about single sentence paragraphs?

Starting a sentence with a conjunction?
 
"You might have been taught that it’s not good English to start a sentence with a conjunction such as and or but. It’s not grammatically incorrect to do so, however, and many respected writers use conjunctions at the start of a sentence to create a dramatic or forceful effect."  http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/conjunctions

If it's bad we are all in trouble.

And what do you think of emoticons?

  Ian

[Danneaux]

But Zero...!

And another thing...!

 

Sorry. It bothers me, too, but my real pet peeve involves language and quantified reductions. With greater frequency, advertising claims something has "x times less" of some quantity. A granola bar was advertised on the local news, claiming to have "ten times fewer calories" A tenth the usual number or 10% of some larger quantity are more accurate phrasings. "Times" implies multiplication, so it cannot mean a reduction. Arrrgh!

All the best,

Dan. (...who thinks "And" and "But" aren't ten times less irritating)

[Andybg]

The real interesting thing with language and vocabulary is that it is an ever evolving thing and what may have been considered incorrect 20 years ago becomes "correct" by modern day use.

Take for example the almost standard misuse of the word jealous in the place of envy. How longwill it be before the dictionary definition is changed?

And dont get me started on split infinitives - lol

Andy

[in4]

...and don't get me going with 'less' and 'fewer' 

[triaesthete]

Andy
I an going to boldly go   out on a limb and suggest you speak of semantic shift. This ability to evolve words. and also meaning and structure is what gives English it's vitality and dominance.

Dan
I think you speak of good old marketing BS.

And further Mr Zero, I would like to take you to task for unsigned epistles. Very forumesque and infra dig. old chap

And I also note your shortening of The Daily Telegraph to "telegraph". Pray what kind of modernist abomination is this! The readers of this august organ may enjoy being outraged, but not in this way methinks.

Yours faithfully
Mr Ian Triaesthete Esquire.

[ianshearin]

I used to have the same views on grammar, in fact I was so passionate that I was given an excellent book called 'Eats Shoots and Leaves' which is a light hearted look at grammar in our society.

However since working in Saudi and coming back to the UK my views on grammar in the English Language have drastically changed.

My main role in Saudi was training the Saudi Air Force, weapons engineering to be precise. The role has many crucial aspects such as dangerous areas that if misused can be lethal. As a result it was imperative that young Saudi's could understand basic warning signs and be able to interpret engineering instructions to the letter.
The culture of Saudi is that the second born male is shipped off to the military, he is plucked from the desert, made to throw away his sandals and undergo a Year of basic miltary training where he learns English. I then receive these 'pressed men' and I have a few Years to turn them into competent engineers.
Adter only a few Months working out there it became apparent that this was never going to happen. The main barrier was that after a Year of intense English language training they could not speak English.
Most students could explain what the different Tenses meant or what a split infinitive was but they were unable to converse with any of their Trainers, explaining a simple instruction such as 'please tie up your laces on your boots before climbing on an aircraft' would take several attempts and usually a certain amount of gesticulating.

Now at the end of the day I would be greeted by the room boy from India who had lied on his Application to get out to Saudi about his ability to speak English but within  few Months I could have a conversation with him as if he spoke the language as a native.

When I came back to UK I took a position training Security Guards in Apprenticeships, one of the components of the Apprenticeship is Literacy. I currently have 30 Guards, 20 of them are Second language English speakers mostly from African countries and the 10 are English.
Without sounding overly dramatic, All of the 20 non English learners have a much better command of the English language than any of my English learners who were taught English at School....

My (personal) Conclusion:

Grammar is for the stalwarts of the English Language, the defenders of ye olde world......
As the world gets smaller and cultures become more entwined with each other Grammar will be lost amongst text books.
The world gets by very well with incidental and conversational English.....

[IanW]

Two observations from my experience:

1) While working briefly in Tehran, I was tasked with communicating some software design to some Iranian programmers.

They were moderately competent programmers but their English language ability was rudimentary, but their English vocabulary was slightly better than rudimentary. Since I do not speak a single word of Farsi. Communication was obviously difficult.

That was until I realized that it was mostly the English grammar and sentence construction that was the problem.
So whilst I necessarily continued using English words, it was fairly easy to re-arrange my sentences to make it easier for them to understand.

After 4 weeks I was joined by a colleague from the UK who observed that I was talking, in English, but very strangely.

2) I now work in an environment where I routinely see email exchanges between people from widely separated regions of the world who are all using "English" as the lingua-franca (oh, the irony of that phrase) to support various software systems.

It is fascinating to observe the muddle that ensues when the wrong words, diverse sentence construction and even mis-punctuation occurs.

It is often my role to step in and resolve the muddle.

And believe me, sometimes, it is just plain clearer to start a whole new paragraph with a conjunction :-)

<Rant>
Also don't get me started on any of:
1) "Your"  and "You're"
2) "There", "Their", "They're"
3) "Less" and "Fewer"
4) Horrible neologisms like "Chill [Out]" + "Relax" => "Chillax"
5) brackets and the correct nesting thereof.
</Rant>

--
Ian W.

[Matt2matt2002]

Pleased to jump in here on this one.
Folk who start sentences with "Basically"  should all be shot.
It means nothing and adds nothing to what they are saying and usually indicates they know nothing about what they are saying.

End of rant.
Where is my 20/20?

[ians]

To me it reads like text speak and leads me to believe that the writer is an illiterate idiot

Oh dear.  (oops, short sentence). 

And another thing....... I spend a lot of my time writing and often start sentences with conjunctions, for a particular effect.  While I might stick my hand up to being illiterate, I don't think this makes me an idiot.

I have my own problems with changes to language, but they are to do with the spoken word, rather than the written word.  An example which really winds me up is the use of 'absolutely' instead of 'yes'.  And (oops) the use of the word 'sensible' by politicians - as in 'all sensible people will agree with me...' thereby implying that if I don't, I must be some kind of idiot.

So apologies ZeroBike, I must disagree (to some extent) - I consider the written word fair game in the interests of creativity. 

ian

[ZeroBike]

And another thing....... I spend a lot of my time writing and often start sentences with conjunctions, for a particular effect.  While I might stick my hand up to being illiterate, I don't think this makes me an idiot.

There is a huge difference between starting the occasional sentence with a conjunction, for effect, and starting every other sentence with a conjunction.  Its akin to the difference between someone who swears occasionally for effect and someone who swears like a docker on a night out.  I have noticed that the majority of people who start sentences with conjunctions do it a lot, in fact they do it so often that it cant really be chalked up to some kind of literally effect.

[Matt2matt2002]

Good point Ian - re the politicians
They try to trick us with words - but we are wise to their games.
And of course (!) you can always tell they are lying when you see their lips move.

Oh dear.  (oops, short sentence). 

And another thing....... I spend a lot of my time writing and often start sentences with conjunctions, for a particular effect.  While I might stick my hand up to being illiterate, I don't think this makes me an idiot.

I have my own problems with changes to language, but they are to do with the spoken word, rather than the written word.  An example which really winds me up is the use of 'absolutely' instead of 'yes'.  And (oops) the use of the word 'sensible' by politicians - as in 'all sensible people will agree with me...' thereby implying that if I don't, I must be some kind of idiot.

So apologies ZeroBike, I must disagree (to some extent) - I consider the written word fair game in the interests of creativity. 

ian

[jags]

i must live on a different planet none of you lot talk the same langauge as me 

[Andre Jute]

Has anyone else noticed that it is becoming more and more common to see  people starting sentences with conjunctions like "And" and "But".

When I do it, it is literature. When you it, it is ignorance.

I'm not joking. No one can break the rules to good effect without first learning to work well within the rules.

But I'm not big on formal teaching of grammar, of the "thou shalt not perpetrate split infinitives" type. I can carry on a vernacular conversation in about thirty languages, and never formally learned the grammar of any including English (which isn't my first language either, by half a dozen or so).

No effort is too much, no cost too great to ensure that your child speaks standard mid-Atlantic English fluently, but grammar isn't the path to that end. Straight conversation with an accomplished speaker of the language works, but is expensive one-on-one work.

Andre Jute

[macspud]

Pleased to jump in here on this one.
Folk who start sentences with "Basically"  should all be shot.
It means nothing and adds nothing to what they are saying and usually indicates they know nothing about what they are saying.

End of rant.
Where is my 20/20?

You're correct in that for the majority of times when "basically" is used to start a sentence it's a good indication that what is to come will need at the least to be taken with a pinch of salt. That said, it's not always true as some people use it when they really do mean "taken to first principles".    

I always have a problem knowing when and where to use commas to break up a sentence. I maybe should have used one or two more in the above paragragh.    

This thread has reminded me study again the use of punctuation, to that end I am reading "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk Jr and E.B. White., having found it online @ http://colfa.utsa.edu/Sociology/the-elements-of-style.pdf