Re: Can "However" replace "But" at the beginning of a sentence?

David wrote:
> I asked if a sentence could start with "But" in a previous post. It
> appears most of you think that beginning a sentence with "But" is not
> strictly forbidden (double negation here?) but it should be avoided in
> formal writings.
> Then, a question comes to mind: if I don't begin a sentence with
> "But", can I use "However" to get the same effect?

Rules, schmules! Deploy your words to set up whatever style meets your
aim: if you want a breathless, jerky style, make every blurt of your
mind a separate sentence; if you want a calm, equable style, unite your
sentences in ways that show their interconnections. Both your posts
focus on contrast, and your underlying question is how to mark it. Here
are some possibilities

(1) A. But B.
(2) A. However, B.
(3) A, but B.
(4) A; but B.
(5) A; however, B.
(6) A: but B.
(7) A---but B.

Each of these patterns conveys its own competency or attitude. The
first pattern readily captures colloquial haste & abruptness. In this
example, the character is trying to think, and thinking is hard for
him, and the text shows it:

1997 Proulx ("Brokeback Mountain") "No," said Ennis, forbearing to ask
whose fault that was. "I goddamn hate it that you're goin a drive away
in the mornin and I'm goin back to work. But if you can't fix it you
got a stand it," he said.

That assertion comes back at the end of the story, reworded &
repunctuated to fit the narrator's voice (do you hear the difference?):

1997 Proulx ("Brokeback Mountain") There was some open space between
what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done
about it, and if you can't fix it you've got to stand it.

Some teachers disdain pattern 4, but it turns up in respectable places
(the Twain example also illustrates pattern 3):

1611 Romans vii.6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be
spiritually minded is life and peace. 1779-81 Johnson ("Prior") His
Chloe probably was sometimes ideal; but the woman with whom he
cohabited was a despicable drab of the lowest species. 1779-81 Johnson
("Dryden") It is by universal consent accounted the work in which he
has admitted the fewest improprieties of style or character; but it has
one fault equal to many, though rather moral than critical, that, by
admitting the romantic omnipotence of love, he has recommended, as
laudable and worthy of imitation, that conduct which, through all ages,
the good have censured as vicious, and the bad despised as foolish.
1821 Hazlitt ("On Familiar Style") A sprinkling of archaisms is not
amiss; but a tissue of obsolete expressions is more fit _for keep than
wear._ 1878 Twain ("Tom Sawyer Abroad") i. There's plenty of boys that
will come hankering and gruvveling around when you've got an apple, and
beg the core off you; but when _they've_ got one, and you beg for the
core and remind them how you give [sic] them a core one time, they make
a mouth at you and say thank you 'most to death, but there
ain't-a-going to _be_ no core. 2005 James Taranto (_Wall Street
Journal,_ 31 Dec.) A8 He is a governor, as were four of the past five
presidents; but he can claim more international experience than most
state executives. 2006 Louis Menand (_New Yorker,_ 2 Jan.) 139 In her
book, the metropole is Paris, the eternal center of the literary
universe (she is, after all, French); but it might be London or New
York as well.

Some people think another pattern is acceptable:

A but, B.

Many will disagree, so that pattern is best avoided; but if you like
its rhythm and have the strength of your convictions, feel free to
punctuate it the way you pronounce it (though schoolmarms may quail):

A. But! B.

Bear in mind that if your sentences are longish and syntactically
complex (and emotionally "positive"), you'll most likely live longer
than average---at least if you're a nun.

.

Quantcast