Is this the way English is going as a "living language"?

[mamselle]

So, no "Et tu, brute?"

Or in the interrogative, only?

M.

[Hegemony]

Starting sentences with "And" — or rather, connecting them with "And" — is a mark of oral tradition and storytelling, and has been used for millennia. For instance, 2 Samuel 31: 1-5:

"And the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gelboe. And the Philistines fell upon Saul, and upon his sons, and they slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Melchisua, the sons of Saul. And the whole weight of the battle was turned upon Saul: and the archers overtook him, and he was grievously wounded by the archers. Then Saul said to his armourbearer: Draw thy sword, and kill me: lest these uncircumcised come, and slay me, and mock at me. And his armourbearer would not: for he was struck with exceeding great fear. Then Saul took his sword, and fell upon it. And when his armourbearer saw this, to wit, that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword and died with him."

Seven sentences, five of which start with "And." The idea that it's wrong to start a sentence with "And" strikes me as pretty silly as well as ahistorical.

[marshwiggle]

Starting sentences with "And" — or rather, connecting them with "And" — is a mark of oral tradition and storytelling, and has been used for millennia. For instance, 2 Samuel 31: 1-5:

"And the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gelboe. And the Philistines fell upon Saul, and upon his sons, and they slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Melchisua, the sons of Saul. And the whole weight of the battle was turned upon Saul: and the archers overtook him, and he was grievously wounded by the archers. Then Saul said to his armourbearer: Draw thy sword, and kill me: lest these uncircumcised come, and slay me, and mock at me. And his armourbearer would not: for he was struck with exceeding great fear. Then Saul took his sword, and fell upon it. And when his armourbearer saw this, to wit, that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword and died with him."

Seven sentences, five of which start with "And." The idea that it's wrong to start a sentence with "And" strikes me as pretty silly as well as ahistorical.

As I understand it, there was no punctuation in the original; it was added in the KJV and other English versions. So where sentences started and ended was not entirely clear.

[mamselle]

No, I read medieval Bible entries all the time; they are punctuated, as were their Latin originals.

Latin punctuation in some running texts is more ambiguous--one has to decide if that point is a period, a comma, or a dash--and that varied with historical periods as well.

But by the time the KJV was done, there was fairly strong agreement as to start-stop punctuation.

What you see in the KJV is the embodiment of the English of that period--which gets us back to the original argument:

Using 'And' to start a sentence, if it's an error, was one frequently made in the period most people look to for robust exemplars of the language.

M.

[Hegemony]

I am skeptical that the Hebrew original was punctuated. And (see what I did there?) wherever you punctuate the passage in question, you get sentences that start with "And." It's the norm in this kind of narrative. You don't always see it because it's often been "improved" by modern translators. For instance, if you look at the originals of the Mabinogion, the body of medieval Welsh legend, a huge percentage of sentences begin with "And" or similar connecting words. The very literal translation by Jones and Jones retains these, but almost all the other modern translations omit them, giving a modern reader the impression that starting a sentence with "And" would have been unusual, when in fact it was effectively the norm.

[ciao_yall]

So, each college and university sent their budget request to the legislature.

Such is likely common parlance.

Whatever.

Would it be correct if written "So As a result, each college and university sent their budget request to the legislature."

They mean the same thing, assuming the reader knows that the previous sentence described some action that resulted in the above action.

Personally I don't like to use "this" as the subject of a sentence, even though this (usage) is correct.

[dismalist]

So, each college and university sent their budget request to the legislature.

Such is likely common parlance.

Whatever.

Would it be correct if written "So As a result, each college and university sent their budget request to the legislature."

They mean the same thing, assuming the reader knows that the previous sentence described some action that resulted in the above action.

Personally I don't like to use "this" as the subject of a sentence, even though this (usage) is correct.

I didn't think "so" was wrong, the overuse of the word just grates.  But I did think "their" is wrong. Should be "its".

[Morden]

Using third-person plural pronouns for singular antecedents is OK now with a lot of formats, including APA: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/grammar/singular-they

[dismalist]

Using third-person plural pronouns for singular antecedents is OK now with a lot of formats, including APA: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/grammar/singular-they

Interesting. I would use "he or she", which the manual expressly permits.

[Parasaurolophus]

Personally, I'm more worried about the fact that most (but not all!) common comp books give an incorrect definition and explanation of what an argument is. But (!) then, I'm not in English.

I don't worry much about this sort of thing. I don't hold too much truck with linguistic prescriptivism (and neither do linguists), but if it's your bread and butter...

[ergative]

Personally, I'm more worried about the fact that most (but not all!) common comp books give an incorrect definition and explanation of what an argument is. But (!) then, I'm not in English.

I don't worry much about this sort of thing. I don't hold too much truck with linguistic prescriptivism (and neither do linguists), but if it's your bread and butter...

I've been holding myself back by my fingernails.

[Rochallor]

So, no "Et tu, brute?"

Or in the interrogative, only?

M.

Et here is an adverb (='even, too'), not a conjunction.

[Wahoo Redux]

Personally, I'm more worried about the fact that most (but not all!) common comp books give an incorrect definition and explanation of what an argument is. But (!) then, I'm not in English.

Just out of curiosity, how so?

And it's not that I disbelieve you----I hate comp textbooks and never used them if I could help it.  But that's just my own preference as a teacher.

[Hibush]

Personally I don't like to use "this" as the subject of a sentence, even though this (usage) is correct.

This.

[Parasaurolophus]

Personally, I'm more worried about the fact that most (but not all!) common comp books give an incorrect definition and explanation of what an argument is. But (!) then, I'm not in English.

Just out of curiosity, how so?

And it's not that I disbelieve you----I hate comp textbooks and never used them if I could help it.  But that's just my own preference as a teacher.

There's a tendency to conflate 'argument' with 'statement' (or sometimes 'a reason'). Validity is another notion that's commonly misused in comp textbooks (it's typically applied as a property of statements, e.g. 'a valid point/reason', when in fact it's a property of arguments, and a very specific one at that). They Say/I Say is a fantastic text, for example, but it never bothers to explain what an argument is (despite mentioning them a lot!), and I don't think it contains a single correct use of 'valid'.

I last checked major comp textbooks five or seven years ago, however, so maybe the situation has improved.