An open letter to the person complaining . . .

Posted on by nobody

Dear sir (or madame, or however you’re supposed to formally address the fragile star children from the planet Zir who have recently come to walk among us), I saw a comment you left somewhere the other day, saying that you “can’t stand” when people start sentences (or maybe it was paragraphs) with the word “and.” I didn’t think much of the comment at the time, but apparently it stuck in my craw. It was only later, when I discovered the comment lodged in said craw, that I realized that I could have or should have addressed it at the time. Now it’s too late. The internet is a big place, its reservoir of grievances deep and wide, its accumulated store of unsolicited opinions stupefying in number. I can never hope to find my way back to where I first saw your comment. I wouldn’t even try. This does have its advantages, though. Knowing that you’ll never read this reply frees me from any and all obligations to be concise, persuasive, or even moderately civil.

From the tone of your comment, I gathered that you find the practice of starting sentences (or paragraphs) with the word “and” to be a pretentious affectation. You don’t understand it, so we should all stop doing it. It might have occurred to you to give more than the most superficial thought to what the purposes and capabilities of the word “and” are before considering your insight valuable enough to offer up in public. But apparently, the fact that you “can’t stand” the word being used anywhere other than the middle of a sentence is reason enough to think that the rest of us should heed this as a prescribed rule to follow.

In actual fact, there are plenty of cases where it’s perfectly legitimate to begin a sentence with the word “and” — or even a paragraph, or maybe even a chapter. You could even begin an account of the history of the universe itself with the word “and” — if for no other reason than just to give a nod to the mysterious void that preceded our existence. It is true, though, that you’ll usually find “and” in the middle of a sentence. I’ll grant you that. If you call the office of “and”, and speak to his secretary, she’ll probably tell you, “He’s in the middle of a sentence. Can I take a message?”

But why? What is this “and”? Well, it’s a conjunction. It’s like an operator in a kind of grammatical arithmetic. It establishes a link or an association between things. Often this can be between two words: “Her sweater was blue and grey.” Sometimes it can be used to join two or more independent clauses: “I tried to call you at work, and I tried call you at home.” These could be separate sentences, but they’re paired together to show a relationship. There’s a common theme, just as the two colors were common to the sweater. The person is trying to get a hold of you.

Now sometimes, sometimes, you need to establish this kind of association with more than just another word or another independent clause. Sometimes you need to establish a connection with a whole cluster of sentences: “I looked for you at the park. I looked for you at the mall. I even went over to the neighbor’s barn and lifted up their pig by its hind legs to check if you were under there. And you were nowhere to be found!” Now, if, for some unknown reason, we all had to restrict ourselves to only writing things in a way that you personally were willing to “stand”, we would be forced to connect that last sentence as a clause to the sentence preceding it (or maybe we could daisy chain all the sentences together with commas), and some of the versatility and flavor of our writing would be lost. Sure, it’s a little thing. It’s a small, seldom used, tool in the overall toolbox of the written word. But it would be one less tool at our disposal.

And the same is true for paragraphs. Sometimes you need to attach a paragraph to several paragraphs which preceded it, as, for instance, when you’ve gone through a lengthy and needlessly convoluted process of making a point and you need to tie it all together.

So, there you go. I could say that I hope this gives you food for thought, but since I don’t know where to address this, the food will just end up sitting on the shelf, undelivered, and growing cold. This will have to be one of those situations where the employees (i.e. the other folks here at “The Retreat”) get dibs on unclaimed orders. Breadsticks and onion rings for everybody!!!

22 thoughts on “An open letter to the person complaining . . .”

  1. And what I should have said, Bryan, is that WordPress doesn’t tell me when you’ve written a new post, so I’m sorry if this has hung around unnoticed till now. Just popped in guiltily to click “publish”. Will read it later.

    And an afterthought. The Authorized (King James) version of the Bible has thousands of verses beginning with “and”. If it’s good enough for the Divine author of that noble work, it’s surely good enough for us.

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  4. It all depends.

    If we’re talking about someone (or possible someones) of unknown or unspecified gender, then I tend to use the singular “they.” It’s an imperfect workaround, I admit. Some people like to use the more precise “he or she” form; others doggedly persist in using the generic “he” form. What tends to bother me is the people who argue for the generic “he” on the grounds that it’s the “correct” usage. Language isn’t about being correct; it’s about what’s most expedient in facilitating our ability to communicate. And that can change over time. I evaluate neo-logisms and changes in usage in terms of whether they sharpen or dull our tools of communication. To me, the singular “they” goes down the smoothest, but I will say that for now the problem mostly exists in nebulous realm of personal preference.

    On the other hand, if we’re talking about specific people who want to be addressed as “they” because they’re laying claim to “their pronouns”, well let me break out my ten foot pole before I address that subject.

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  5. I actually have no complaint about anyone’s use of English. It’s a a valuable way of telling you about themselves.

    In the same way I like to exercise freedom in my own speech or writing, depending on the company. I resist any pressure to conform the current idiom if it doesn’t suit me; mainly out of fidelity to memory, and those I have respected, from the nineteen-forties onward. In those days, one’s mentors were faithful to their mentors in turn. Before you knew it, you’d be almost on conversational terms with the Duke of Wellington.

    So when I saw “stupifying” in your post, I checked.

    1874 C. H. Spurgeon Treasury of David IV. Ps. lxxxi. 26 No dulness should ever stupify our psalmody.

    That’s recent enough. So I’ll happily claim “Man” and “he” as representing all of us, wherever I can get away with it. I especially like “it” as the pronoun of choice for a small unspecified child. And pronounce 1909 as “Nineteen nine”. And silently cheer when I hear someone else of my generation who also hasn’t caved in.

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    1. I get the impulse to resist. There have been several waves of language fads that I’ve weathered with a roll of my eyes and a shake of my head.

      But the singular “they” is something I grew up with. It’s what seems normal to me. It’s in the marrow that my bones have grown around. It would be strange to think of it as some foreign thing that I’ve capitulated to. It too fundamental for that, too familiar.

      The generic “he” is what I feel resistance to (pressure to conform to other standards or language can come from the past as well as the future.) Imagine someone telling you that you have to use “you” to address someone formally and “thou” to address someone familiar casually, on the grounds that there’s a noble tradition dating back to the 17th century, and you’re honor bound to this usage if you care at all about noble traditions. Would you really go around talking like that?

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  6. Not forgetting the Authorized Version of the Bible (KJV) which still keeps alive the English translation by William Tyndale (1494-1536). Subsequent translations are to be ignored!

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  7. “Knowing that you’ll never read this reply frees me from any and all obligations to be concise, persuasive, or even moderately civil.”
    Haha. This is brilliant!

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  8. Anyone alert to the European zeitgeist in 1956 would have been in no doubt that major revelations could be prefixed with “and”, in any language, without recourse to the Bible.

    Brigitte Bardot stunned us all in And God Created Woman with its tagline but the Devil shaped Bardot. I was 14 at the time. The movie was proudly X-rated, so I had no chance of watching it, but I never forgot the moment I saw the poster.

    I could have sworn the title was “And Woman Was Created”. It was!

    There was a lot of fuss in England about associating God with a beautiful naked woman (as first viewed sunbathing on the beach, apparently). So they had to take out the word God.

    Call me a blasphemer, I don’t mind a bit, but one particular woman is enough to convince me there’s a creator God.

    For the rest. I’m content with the bittersweet kindness of a freelance guardian angel batting on my behalf.

    Which is what brought back the memory of the poster: the exact moment outside that little cinema in Newport, Isle of Wight.

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  13. We ordered the film and marvelled at its beauty and quality. A blurb somewhere says it changed cinema forever. Roger Vadim later made another film also called “And God Created Woman” in 1988. It’s in English & set in America, but not very highly rated. Still, the late Roger Ebert praises the parts involving actors Rebecca De Mornay & Vincent Spano. May report on that too, when it arrives. In any event it’s beautifully done.

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      1. Sorry for late reply, only just saw this. Yes, lots of good movies, can recommend Vadim’s later version too. (I think Ebert was wrong in parts of his verdict.) No plans to watch others with Bardot in.

        And yes, doing very well thanks, my life has become miniaturised, full of wonderful moments and general sweetness. As you haven’t emailed since, I wonder how you are doing, hope to hear from you when you can.

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        1. Doing well! I’m trying to ruminate on some ideas for posts here since it feels like this is slipping away from us, and I feel somewhat responsible for that. The last thing I wanted to do was sour things here.

          Also, it was embarrassing that I unwittingly managed to back myself into the role of “offended person of group X”, not a comfortable position to be in. It felt like being the guest of honor at the world’s lamest birthday party, or like having a bizarre allergy to clouds that raises all sorts of questions, “Can you look at clouds? What about fog? Oooh, how about rain? That comes from clouds, right?” Yeah, I didn’t like it. It’s strange to me that the younger generation seems to treat this sort of thing like a game, constantly jockeying to find some means of maneuver themselves into that position, so as to reap the attention and emotional pampering that comes with it.

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