This also came up on either a BBC or CBC science program, but not as a linguistically-oriented discussion. Over the last two or three years I’ve noticed a lot more people starting a sentence with “so”: “so when we take the …”, “so I have this …”, “so the basic idea …” and (uh) so … Read more
While writing a rhetorical question I ran into a case where it seemed natural to start a sentence with “I.e”: How do we handle the case when the list is empty? I.e., if the filter matched no entries? Is that OK in this case? In any case? Edit: Thanks, everyone. It seems the consensus is … Read more
When a sentence starts with e.g., should the e be capitalized? Neverminding that it might be better to start with “For example,” … Thinking of SE posts and comments, should the starting e be capitalized? Answer Yes. Sentences start with capital letters; abbreviations are no exception. A possible* exception is when a proper name starts … Read more
Since I first learned English, I have been holding this understanding that “and”, as a conj. but unlike “but”, can only connect two clauses, not two sentences ended with periods. But recently, I have seen so many prints, either in entertainment or in academia, where “And” is popularly used in the beginning of a sentence. … Read more
Possible Duplicates: How Should Trademarks be Written? How do you capitalize a proper noun such as “iPhone”? Many products these days have names that intentionally begin with lowercase letters. The most common examples are of the Apple “iDevice” variety, but there are some others – inSSIDer is one. When beginning a sentence with these names, … Read more
When starting a sentence with a lower case pseudonym, such as a screen name of a user account on a website, should it be capitalized? Or are there different cases where it would and would not be appropriate to do so? My curiosity was sparked by this meta EL&U page where a user comments that … Read more
In the last few years, I’ve noticed a growing usage of the word “so” to begin a sentence, especially in the context of higher education. For example: Interviewer: “What is the nature of your research” Researcher: “So, what we wanted to find out is…” It seems to be a replacement the word “well”, or, more … Read more
I often find myself writing a lot of comments to blog posts and responses on forums, and have noticed a tendency to start a lot of sentences with ‘I’. ‘I think…’, ‘I had no idea’, ‘I used to…’ etc. Is there a general style guideline about avoiding this, or is is acceptable when you’re writing … Read more
For example: Instead, you’ll use a higher-level model called ASP.NET AJAX. ASP.NET AJAX gives you a set of server-side components and controls that you can use when designing your web page. This does not seem correct to me, at least in this case. Answer While I’m not aware of a particular grammatical rule that would … Read more
A friend was noting that his daughter would occasionally start sentences with the phrase “I mean, ” simply for emphasis, not for clarification: Friend: How was the Miley Cyrus concert? Friend’s daughter: I mean, it was the best concert ever! I have typically seen “I mean” used to join two statements – for example, as … Read more
