Comment 60121

By Michelle Martin (registered) - website | Posted February 21, 2011 at 20:32:14 in reply to Comment 60120

Likewise, some of the greatest English writers in history started sentences with conjunctions, ended them with prepositions, and committed no end of grammatical abuses in between.

And of course there's nothing wrong with starting a sentence with a conjunction, provided its meaning is clear. Nothing drives me crazier as a parent to see a child's perfectly grammatical prose corrected by a teacher who thinks that you can't begin a sentence with and or but.

Prepositions can certainly go on the end of sentences if it makes for less awkward reading.

One of my other favourite nuns (whom I also googled and discovered she had passed on) taught grade 11 English, and on grammar Fridays, when she challenged us with sentences that were tricky to correct, or for which two different answers seemed equally possible, she encouraged us to say it out loud, and go for the answer that just felt right. We'd been speaking English long enough, after all (sixteen whole years by then).

Comment edited by Michelle Martin on 2011-02-21 20:39:26

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