But. And 'And'. amongst others.

[MikeMikeMike]

Can anyone give me a good reason not to start a sentence with the word 'But' or 'And'? And also, apart from archaic Latin rules which have little to do with the English language, why should I not be permitted to happily split my infinitive?

[IndieSinger]

But it's just not done! And some would even say it's bad grammar! One must always try hard not to purposely displease authoritative grammarians.

But seriously, regarding split infinitives like the one above, one must think of grammatical clarity. Compare:

The police decided playfully to raid the truck.
The police decided to playfully raid the truck.

Was it the act of deciding that the police did playfully, or was it the act of raiding?

According to one online guide:
The argument against split infinitives (based on rather shaky historical grounds) is that the infinitive is a single unit and, therefore, should not be divided. Because it raises so many readers' hackles and is so easy to spot, good writers, at least in academic prose, avoid the split infinitive. Instead of writing "She expected her grandparents to not stay," then, we could write "She expected her grandparents not to stay." Sometimes, though, avoiding the split infinitive simply isn't worth the bother. There is nothing wrong, really, with a sentence such as the following:
He thinks he'll be able to more than double his salary this year.

According to The Oxford American Desk Dictionary, the rule against the split infinitive "can generally be ignored", "is not firmly grounded" and "can lead to awkward, stilted sentences."

Today's dictionaries allow us to split the infinitive, but it should never be done at the expense of grace.

To boldly go where...

[MikeMikeMike]

I agree entirely, an infinitive should not be split at the expense of grace. It should also not be maintained at the expense of grace. How unwieldly would Captain Kirk's mission statement be if he said he was going 'to go boldly' where no man has gone before. That way it sounds, for want of a better word, rubbish. As to your own example (no offence intended) the sentence where the infinitve is split seems much clearer to me.I see no way that the sentence could be interpretted other than that the truck was raided in a playful manner. Whereas the pure and grammatically 'correct' sentence leaves the specific focus of their fun and games in doubt. I understand the historical basis, since in Latin the inifinitive would be a single word (e.g. scribere: to write) but this rule has no sensible grounding in English, where the infinitive is quite clearly two words. And I think her emphatic expectation of her grandparents 'to not stay' is a totally different sentiment from her supposition that they probably won't. AAAARGH. The more I think about it the more riled I become. I'm going to start a one man crusade. I may let others join in when I've worked up a bit of steam.

[JohnPPotts]

Well, the reason not to start a sentence with and or but is that they're conjunctions linking two clauses, whereas a full stop splits them up - so by starting a sentence with "And" you're effectively splitting two statements and then re-uniting them, if that makes sense (although you might if you were speaking to indicate pauses between the clauses, eg. "I bought a dress. And some shoes. And a handbag."). As for splitting an infinitive, I'd agree it's generally OK - any rules based on the use of Latin grammar are largely irrelevant as it is impossible to split the infinitive in Latin (it's a single word).

[geofbob]

If you go back to the great writers of the Victorian era - who generally were better gramarians that today's writers - you will find that not only did they often start sentences with "And" or "But", but even whole paragraphs. (I've just looked at Dickens' "David Copperfield", and quickly found several examples.)So does the King James version of the Bible - eg Chapter 2 of the First Book of Kings has numerous verses starting with "And".

[Quizmonster]

It was Churchill, as I recall, who - when told by 'experts' that he should not end a sentence with a preposition - replied: "That is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put."

Exactly the same applies to beginning sentences with conjunctions. The greatest of writers - as witness the 'King James Bible' already mentioned - have done so since the start of modern English. This applies to either everyday or high-falutin' speech and writing...you'll find sentences opening with 'and' or 'but' in 'The Times' just as readily as in 'The Sun'. And why on earth shouldn't you? Do it and you'll be in excellent company.

[MikeMikeMike]

Thank ou all. You have been tested and most of you have passed. And so you should

[MikeMikeMike]

Incidentally, as far as the conjunction argument is concerned, you do have a point to a degree, but by putting 'and' or 'but' at the beginning of a sentence it's possible to link two complex ideas, maybe requiring several clauses each, which would become mighty confusing once you start bandying semi-colons; hypens - and others of the dash brigade - and parentheses about (a piece of punctuation which I always think betrays a certain lack of natural grace).

[thewillow]

Quizmonster - Stephen Fry has a good yarn about ending a sentence with eight prepositions. I can't remember it precisely but it goes something like this. The scenario is a child complaining that her mother was yet again going to read her a bedtime story about Australia: "What did you bring that book that I don't like to be read to out of about Down-under up for?"

[Quizmonster]

Excellent, Willow! I had heard that one before and quite forgotten about it. (However, I doubt whether one could construct a sentence that opens with eight conjunctions!) Cheers

[IndieSinger]

In an effort to coerce his young son to bed, a dedicated father told the boy to go upstairs, to his bedroom, promising him to follow shortly with a book. The father would then read to his son in bed. When his father arrived, with his sons least favorite book, one about Australia, the boy said, "What did you bring that book, that i don't want to be read to from out of about Down Under up for?" This held the Guiness Book record until the category was dropped, purportedly because you can add prepositions to the end of this sentence indefinitely, as follows: "What did you say that the sentence with the most prepositions at the end was 'What did you bring that book that I don't want to be read to from out of about Down Under up for?' for?" The preceding sentence has one more.

[thewillow]

That's it IndieSinger. Thanks. I no longer have Fry's book.