QT 3 – Video Transcript and Bonus Info
Hey, everyone! Welcome back to QuickTakes with Cate on all things writing in under two minutes. Here’s a question I often hear from my students: Can you start a sentence with “and”?
“And why not?” I reply.
Somewhere along the way, it seems, an English teacher has added an 11th commandment: Thou shalt start no sentence with “and.”
But what do the language authorities say? Charles Allen Lloyd calls such a notion “groundless” and a “monstrous doctrine.” Bryan A. Garner calls it “rank superstition.” Ernest Gowers even appeals to God, no less, writing, “The Bible is full of them.”
A quick look at the book of Genesis, chapter 1, shows that 33 of the 35 sentences begin with “and.” You know what that means, don’t you? That means that the word “and” has been around since creation!
So where does this nonrule come from? Perhaps schoolteachers themselves believe there is a commandment. Or perhaps they are trying to curb children’s tendencies to begin every sentence with “and.” Or maybe it’s just a quick fix for a fragment error.
Whatever the reason, too many people believe starting a sentence with “and” (or “but”) is wrong. What might be wrong—at least for everyday writing—is beginning every sentence with “and” or even every other sentence. Benjamin Dryer, copy chief of Random House says, “Two sentences in a single paragraph beginning with the same introductory term…are usually one sentence too many.”
So the problem—if there is one—isn’t with starting a sentence with “and,” but with poor style.
In the next article, op-ed, or essay you read, count the number of sentences that begin with “and.” Better yet, open the Bible to the book of Genesis, where chapter 1 tells us, not just once, but many times, “And—God saw that it was good.”
And that’s a wrap!
The rest of the story:
Some teachers tell students not to start sentences with “and,” doing so as a quick fix for fragment errors. Consider this sentence written by a first grader.
I went to the zoo. And to the park.
The second sentence is a fragment—it is missing a subject and verb. While a sentence fragment need not be an error—skilled writers often use them to good effect—in first grade, there are no skilled writers. But rather than explain to a child that to be complete, a sentence must contain a subject and its verb, the teacher simply gives a quick fix: “Don’t start your sentences with ‘and.’”
In his Modern American Usage, Bryan A. Garner quotes Philip Boswood Ballard, who writes:
“Taking down my Bible and opening it at random, I find that the eighth chapter of Exodus contains thirty-two sentences, twenty-five of which begin with ‘and.’” (Philip Boswood Ballard)
Ballard might have turned at random to a chapter in the Bible, but I did even better than that. I went to the creation story in the first chapter of Genesis. In the King James Version, there are thirty-five sentences. And of those thirty-five, all but two sentences begin with “and.”
The Chicago Manual of Style says “a substantial percentage (often as many as 10 percent) of the sentences in first-rate writing begin with conjunctions,” and that “it has been so for centuries.”
Beginning a sentence with “and” can be an effective technique—if not overused. The key is not whether a writer can begin a sentence with “and,” but rather whether doing so will serve the writer’s purpose. That decision rests on many factors, including intended emphasis, context, logic, and overall style.