To all interested: Grammar aside, I think some are missing the point. I work with a Polish emigrant who is trying his best to improve his English. He is always happy when someone points out something that is not quite right. I could be wrong but I think that was the intent offered and not meant as criticism or ridicule. I wish I knew enough of another language that some would offer help in improving my usage of it. I admire anyone who can learn English as a second or third language, I have trouble with it as my native language. But again the old Proverb that no good deed goes unpunished seems to be in effect here.
VW ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stewart McCoy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Lute Net" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 1:24 PM Subject: Vihuela vs guitar > Dear Rainer, > > Philip Sidney is not the only writer to begin sentences with a > conjunction. I have just picked up the first book I could find by > Goethe, and immediately spotted a sentence beginning with "Und" > (_Die Leiden des Jungen Werther_, May 26th): "Und da k�me ein > Philister". Next I opened my collected Shakespeare at random, and > found, "But I'd say he had not" (_The Winter's Tale_, Act 2, Scene > 1). Many verses in the Bible start with "And it came to pass". The > world is full of sentences beginning with conjunctions, often from > very eminent writers, but that still doesn't make it grammatically > correct. > > Only too well aware of the discrepancy between theory and practice, > I confess I had difficulty deciding how best to give the grammatical > rule, while at the same time accepting that the rule is often > broken. After many attempts I came up with "One should not normally > begin a sentence with "But", which seemed the best way round it. > > Just for the record, I never begin sentences with "And" or "But". An > editor once changed something I had written to include a sentence > beginning with "And", and published it without telling me what he'd > done. I nearly blew a fuse. :-) > > Best wishes, > > Stewart. > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Spring, aus dem, Rainer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Lute Net" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 9:50 AM > Subject: RE: Vihuela vs guitar > > > > > > Dear Stewart, > > > > > > > > 1) One should not normally begin a sentence with "But", since > "but" > > > is a word used to co-ordinate two parts of a sentence. > > > > Have a look at Sidney's Arcadia :) > > > > Best wishes, > > > > Rainer aus dem Spring > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
