If it feels right and sounds right when you read it aloud, then it
probably is right.
Grammar rules are formed from the way people speak and have been
formalized to satisfy the expectations of certain groups of people.
Certainly first and foremost, writing is about communication. Grammar
can certainly make communication more effective, but it can also be
taken to the point where it is just arguments on points which have very
little to do with effective communication.
Just my take on things! ( ;
Alan
On 3/3/2010 11:30 AM, Gary Schnabl wrote:
On 3/2/2010 5:18 PM, James Andrew wrote:
Gary Schnabl, on 1 Mar 2010:
The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed.
sits atop my old trusty P4, and I knew in advance that it actually
promotes the use of starting sentences with "and" in appropriate use
cases. Cf. paragraph 5.191 in the CMoS and check it out...
Although I was aware that the CMoS is our bible, I'm not [yet]
familiar with it. Like Claire, I'm British and so I expect to find
myself thrown when sentences that seem blatantly wrong to me are
considered acceptable.
That said, I'm particularly fond of beginning sentences with
"however" and have never seen that as being a transgression. Two
rules to remember: a) we are writing for an international audience,
not all of whom have English as their main language, and b) languages
are alive and mutating all the time. It's perfectly normal for there
to be no single "correct way".
The CMoS way has been selected; the CMoS we must strive to follow.
P.S. I don't like the semi-colon in that last sentence but, for the
life of me, I don't have the brain capacity tonight to work out what
might be better...
This is a good time to try out the new address...
Point 1: "That said, I'm particularly fond of beginning sentences with
"however" and have never seen that as being a transgression."
Being very picky, picky here... You should not start a sentence with
"however". Use "However" instead. Gotcha...
Point 2: As with most style-guide priorities, a company style guide
would have priority #1 and be somewhat mandatory; other style guides
usually are suggested guides. The CMoS is the most widely used of the
dozens in the US. So, they are fairly ubiquitous, even outside the US.
Point 3: "P.S. I don't like the semi-colon in that last sentence but..."
You shouldn't, as "semicolon" <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semicolon>
is generally not hyphenated--i.e., unhyphenated.
Point 4: The Merriam-Webster (MW) Collegiate dictionary (Eleventh
edition)--the most common orthograhic reference for US English
usage--has a free online analog:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/info/faq.htm. So, anybody could use that.
One spelling item to note: Many once-hyphenated words in US English
have routinely been unhyphenated for a half century or longer.
Checking the free dictionary or even Wikipedia will usually indicate
that unhyphenated word usage for words with such prefixes as "un" or
"non" are generally only the listed words, as in MW. The print version
of MW lists nearly all such "un" and "non" prefixed words as being
unhyphenated, without a space.
Back a couple years ago, one of our writers had employed three
different versions of a prefixed word in the same (first) chapter of
either the Writer guide or Getting Started. I forgot the word, but its
three variants were: (1) non root, (2) non-root, and (3) nonroot,
where root was the word without the prefix.
Gary
