Some years ago I began to notice that my college freshmen had all gotten a very strange idea. They had been taught that one must never begin a sentence with the word “because.” I have no idea where high school teachers came up with this one. It is like alligators in the Manhattan sewers, or aliens landing in Roswell. Some kook huddled in a condemned building says it, and all at once everybody “knows” it, though it is not in the slightest bit true.
There’s nothing special about the word “because.” It’s a subordinating conjunction, like a hundred others. Any of them may begin a sentence—so long as it’s a sentence they are beginning. A sentence, whether it begins with “because” or “if” or “since” or “although” or “whenever” or “while” or “whatever” or whatever, requires a main clause. This is not a sentence:
Because I could not stop for death.
But it’s because it lacks a main clause. Let Emily Dickinson supply one:
Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me.
Why would you want to begin with the “because”? Well, you might want to emphasize the main clause, leaving it to the end, if that contains the idea you are going to develop. Or you might want to emphasize the material in the subordinate clause, placing it after the main clause:
We’re off to see the Wizard,
The wonderful Wizard of Oz!
We hear he is a whiz of a wiz
If ever a wiz there was!
If ever if ever a wiz there was
The Wizard of Oz is one because
Because because because because because —
Because of the wonderful things he does!
We’re off to see the Wizard,
The wonderful Wizard of Oz!
December 21st, 2012 | 1:34 pm
“I have no idea where high school teachers came up with this one. ”
I have no idea either, but I can confirm I was taught that, along with “And” and “But.”
What a joy it was to discover that we can use And or But to start sentences. Sometimes I now start a sentence with And just to relish the fact that I am allowed to do so. The police won’t come. I will not be vilified for making a grade school level grammar mistake just because I said “And…”
I am waiting for the day when we can also start sentences with “Which” – which I love to do.
I’ll probably not live long enough to see the day, my it’s on my wish list.
December 21st, 2012 | 2:17 pm
Yes, please. From the time I was four years old, I read everything I could get my hands on (yes, I was precocious…and yes, I’m the sort of nerd who squeals with joy when the new issue of First Things arrives…). Because I was so well-read, when my 3rd-grade teacher announced that “You can’t start a sentence with ‘because’”, I *knew* she was lying. So, I called her on it. (Yes, I was one of *those* children). She, of course, told me that I was right, but that the other students probably didn’t know how to read and write that well, and so the rule in her classroom was to not start sentences with “Because”.
Because I can, I do it all the time now. :D
December 21st, 2012 | 2:40 pm
Sorry to say, but the English teachers I had in High School in the 60s also demanded this. I eliminated such sentences from the essays I submitted in English classes; elsewhere I happily ignored the diktat.
December 21st, 2012 | 3:33 pm
Teachers demands their students not start a sentence with ‘because’ (and other subordinating conjunctions) because they believe it makes a clearer distinction to children the difference between subordinate and main clauses. I don’t believe it helpful in teaching grammar but, what do I know?
December 21st, 2012 | 4:22 pm
Dear MPB: The teachers themselves, most of them, do not know what a subordinate conjunction is. They have picked up the “rule” as part of the detritus of what used to be the study of grammar and style. Heck, all they would have do to would be to say, “Dear, you haven’t finished your sentence. Look, it doesn’t contain a main idea. Here’s what you need to do.” The result now is the worst of all outcomes. The kids know no grammar. What little they are taught is confused and often wrong. And they STILL don’t know what a sentence fragment is.
December 24th, 2012 | 8:43 am
Can you recommend a study tool that I can use with my children to teach them grammar?
December 24th, 2012 | 10:06 pm
I repeat Fred’s query.
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