‘Lazy’ words you should use in your writing

Examples of these rules include never ending a sentence with a preposition and never spliting an infinitive. Well let’s add another to the list . . .

Last week, my fourth-grader very adamantly told me that I could not start a sentence with and. He was reading over my shoulder and told me: “You need to change that mom. It’s wrong.”

Now I have no idea why they’re still teaching this “rule” in elementary school. But you can in fact start a sentence with and or but, or any other conjunction. And according to the Chicago Manual of Style … “a substantial percentage (often as many as 10 percent) of the sentences in first-rate writing begin with conjunctions.”

There is no grammar rule in any stylebook or usage manual that I have read that prevents writers from starting a sentence with any conjunction. I believe this prohibition came about for rhetorical or stylistic reasons. I remember being told it was “lazy” to start your sentences with and or but.