{"id":623,"date":"2012-08-09T08:06:37","date_gmt":"2012-08-08T20:06:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=623"},"modified":"2012-08-16T11:31:46","modified_gmt":"2012-08-15T23:31:46","slug":"and-another-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=623","title":{"rendered":"And another thing \u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?attachment_id=622\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-622\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-622\" title=\"And\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/And.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"227\" height=\"187\" \/><\/a>Is it OK to start a sentence with \u2018And\u2019?<\/p>\n<p>Well, yes, it is OK.\u00a0 And, on occasion, it can also be very useful.<\/p>\n<p>And yet, about once a month, someone challenges KiwiStreet\u2019s use of this humble connective conjunction.\u00a0 Almost without exception, the authority for their challenge is some all-but-forgotten high school English teacher.<\/p>\n<p>It does not reflect well on the teacher.\u00a0 Nor does it reflect well on the teacher of the teacher.\u00a0 Good writers have been starting sentences with \u2018And\u2019 since at least Anglo Saxon times.\u00a0 The King James Version of The Bible makes frequent use of And.\u00a0 And so did Shakespeare.<\/p>\n<p>Many teachers also seem to have convinced their pupils that \u2018but\u2019 has no place at the beginning of a sentence.\u00a0 But, again, there is no reason why it should not be used to start a sentence.\u00a0 Indeed, \u2018but\u2019 can be a very useful word with which to introduce a balancing statement.\u00a0 \u2018All Animals have Sense,\u2019 John Locke noted way back in 1690.\u00a0 \u2018But a Dog is an Animal.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>I am not suggesting that you disregard every grammatical \u2018rule\u2019 that you learned at school.\u00a0 Some supposed rules do play a useful part in ensuring clear, concise communication.\u00a0 But many do not.\u00a0 Many are just the quirky personal preferences of fuddy-duddy pedants.\u00a0 Those \u2018rules\u2019 you may safely ignore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is it OK to start a sentence with \u2018And\u2019? Well, yes, it is OK.\u00a0 And, on occasion, it can also be very useful. And yet, about once a month, someone challenges KiwiStreet\u2019s use of this humble connective conjunction.\u00a0 Almost without &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=623\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=623"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":630,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623\/revisions\/630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}