Beginning sentences with conjunctions | The parts of speech | Grammar | Khan Academy

- [Voiceover] Hey grammarians.

Some of you may have been raised like me,

with the superstition

that it wasn't okay to start
a sentence with a conjunction.

Like for, or and, or nor, or but.

But I'm here to tell you,

not to bury the lead, totally fine.

Like, you may do this.

There is nothing ungrammatical
about this construction.

Let me show you what I mean

and what sort of sentences have
historically been regarded,

by some people, as unacceptable.

So let's start by looking at
this two sentence paragraph.

"Ginny looked at the
painting suspiciously.

But, as she turned away, she
didn't see it look at her."

Or, just starting something on its own,

without connecting it to, you know,

you can start a paragraph with it like,

"But the question remains, what is art?"

There's this, there's this superstition

that says that you can't begin
sentences with conjunctions,

that it's ungrammatical or weak writing,

and I don't think either
of these things are true.

In fact, I think is a conflation,

or a confusion of a couple
separate issues in writing.

But sometimes you wanna
punctuate a sentence

by beginning with a conjunction.

There's a kind of dramatic
tension you can access

by beginning a sentence like that,

kind of unexpectedly leaping into action.

What I like about sentence
initial "But" here

is that it kind of, you
think the sentence is over,

and it is,

but then this other thing happens,

and putting it after a piece
of terminal punctuation

like a period really serves to bring into

sharp relief whatever it
is you're trying to say

after the "But."

I think this an awfully useful technique,

and I'm not alone.

Brian Garner, the author
of the usage manual

that I use most of the time,

Garner's Modern American Usage,

says that about 9% of sentences

by, what he calls, first-rate writers

begin with "and," "but"
and "so" or other words

in the FANBOYS mnenomic,
if you remember FANBOYS.

And that's "for,"

"and," "nor,"

"but," "or,"

"yet," "so."

And then those are the
coordinating conjunctions.

And it's not just Garner,

'cause that's a relatively
recent publication,

but we're talking about
language authorities

going back to like, Anglo-Saxon times?!

I've never had a problem

with starting sentences with conjunctions.

I think where the prohibition
has traditionally come from,

where this language
superstition comes from,

is a conflation with another problem.

Let's get to that on the next screen.

Alright, consider the following utterance.

"Because I said so."

Is this a sentence?

No, actually this is what's
called a sentence fragment.

"Because I said so."
is a dependent clause,

it can't stand on its own in a sentence.

"Because" is what we'd call
a subordinating conjunction.

So dependent clauses follow
subordinating conjunctions,

which means that they grant context,

but they can't stand on
their own as sentences.

If you remember the
analogy I used previously,

an independent clause,
you know, is like a tree.

And, a subordinating conjunction
marking a dependent clause

is like a ladder leaning
up against that tree.

You can have the tree without the ladder,

but without the tree to lean on,

the ladder's not gonna stand up.

Now it's totally fine to begin
a sentence with "because,"

as long as it's attached
to an independent clause.

So, you know, you could say,

"Because I told them to,"

comma,

the goblins built me a sandcastle."

Very nice, so the little goblins do that.

So, I think because of that fear

of just ending the sentence
as "Because I told them to,"

of creating the sentence fragment,

I think it's pretty easy
to simplify all that down

into just saying, oh,
don't start sentences

with conjunctions, just generally.

So this is really less about
how you start an utterance,

and more about how you end it.

If you're gonna start a sentence

with a conjunction of any kind,

you have to make sure

that you're actually producing a sentence.

So think about your follow through,

is ultimately the take away here.

If you start a sentence
with a conjunction,

make sure you're building towards

some kind of independent clause.

Now don't get me wrong,

sentence fragments
definitely have their place,

but, not in formal writing.

You would use this maybe
for rhetorical effect,

or, to approach a kind
of realism in dialogue,

but not in essay writing,
not for the newspaper.

I just wanna repeat,
there's not really a rule

against beginning sentences
with a conjunction.

It's a superstition, frankly.

And in practice, the rule
is generally ignored.

So I read this paper
from like 1994, or so,

that analyzed the frequency

of the word "but" in newspapers,

and found that 60% of the time

it was used at the
beginnings of sentences.

Which is way more often
than certainly I expected!

But it makes sense for that medium.

It's punchy, it's dramatic.

But, it gets a little stale

if you use it too often, I think.

But, again, you can absolutely begin

sentences with conjunctions.

It's just that if you start a
sentence with a conjunction,

you have to follow through,

and actually make it a sentence.

If you begin a sentence with
a subordinating conjunction,

you're writing a dependent clause

that needs to be followed up

by an independent clause, right?

So if you're beginning with
a subordinating clause,

you're making the ladder

and you need to follow it
up with a tree to lean on.

But if you begin a sentence
with a coordinating conjunction,

like one of the FANBOYS conjunctions,

you're in good shape.

Just try not to overuse it,

as you'd avoid overusing anything.

Moderation in all things!

So, take away?

Write full sentences,

and put your best "but" forward.

You can learn anything.

David out.