| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
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Page 9
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because
| | because beginning a sentence
| | “Because I could not stop for Death—/He kindly stopped for me”. So begins one of Emily Dickinson’s most well-known poems, and so falls another of the more arbitrary rules of usage, which states that you should not begin a sentence with because. As Dickinson’s poem attests, there are occasions when because is perfectly appropriate as the opening word of a sentence. In fact, sentences beginning with because are quite common in written English. | 1 |
| because in clauses that are the subject
| | A related rule states that you cannot use a clause beginning with because as the subject of a sentence, as in Just because he thinks it’s a good idea doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. This construction is perfectly acceptable, but it carries a colloquial flavor and you may want to save it for informal situations. | 2 |
| because after negated verbs
| | When because follows a negated verb phrase, it must be preceded by a comma when the because clause explains why the event did not occur. They didn’t want her on the committee, because she was so outspoken means roughly “Her outspokenness was their reason for not wanting her on the committee.” When there is no comma, the because clause is included in what is being negated. Thus They didn’t want her on the committee because she was so outspoken implies that they may in fact have wanted her on the committee but for some reason other than her outspokenness. | 3 |
| the reason is because
| | For a discussion of this frequently condemned phrase, see
redundancy under Style. | 4 |
better / best
| | A traditional rule of grammar states that you can only use the comparative degree when comparing two things. Thus you must say She is the older (not the oldest) of the two cousins. And you had better use better in similar comparisons: Which house of Congress has the better (not best) attendance record? Native speakers will recognize the natural sound of best in this sentence (and of oldest in the previous example) and will conclude that this traditional rule is often ignored in practice. In fact, many of our most celebrated writers use oldest, best, and other superlatives to compare two things. But don’t be surprised if someone objects when you follow suit. The traditional rules have many devoted adherents. | 5 |
| Keep in mind, however, that there are certain fixed expressions, such as Put your best foot forward and May the best team win!, where you can’t go wrong using best. | 6 |
| More at
had better. | 7 |
but
| | but beginning a sentence
| | “In his youth Dostoevsky had been attracted to utopian socialism of the Fourierist variety. But four years in a prison camp in Siberia shook his faith.” As this quotation from J.M. Coetzee shows, the conjunction but can be highly effective as a sentence opener. You may still hear the injunction against beginning a sentence with a conjunction. The idea is that these sentences express “incomplete” thoughts. But a glance through any magazine or | 8 |
| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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