SKOOL

I'm back! And I'm already feeling so much better about almost everything. Harvard is like this virtual minefield of 1UPs for my mental health, which is great.

Let's talk about starting sentences with conjunctions. And grammar. But not the boring kind. (See what I did there? Ohhh yeah.)

I start sentences (and a ton of fragments) with conjunctions like it's nobody's business--like the dash and parentheses, it's become a huge part of my semi-casual writing style. (This is fun. I like this game.) Despite how natural a construction it seems to me, I never use it in academic writing for fear of getting bitched at by teachers. That's probably fair, and it almost always sounds more formal to work around the constriction and express the thought some other way. But I still like this better.

As always, wikipedia has something to say on the matter: "Many students are taught that certain conjunctions — such as 'and', 'but', and 'so' — should not begin sentences, although this belief has 'no historical or grammatical foundation'.^[1]"
 
Maybe someday when I'm fancy and right reel gud I can bring this back up again and set a bad example for those of younger generations dying to be me. Or not. I just love this example of how grammatical rules exist for a reason, and sometimes that reason is to be stylistically broken to create a certain stronger effect. Should it be abused? No; that's the quickest way to drain the power out of anything. But it's a liberty that creative writing can take advantage of. And I love that.

L