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FANBOYS at the Beginning of a Sentence 2532 Views


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English Language

Transcript

00:04

FANBOYS at the beginning of a sentence, a la Shmoop.

00:07

There's no experience quite like babysitting toddler triplets of the male persuasion.

00:11

You'll always have the difficult task of convincing the demon spawn to go down for

00:16

nap time.

00:17

If you're lucky, though, someday you'll conquer those triplet hellions...

00:20

...and the FANBOYS grammar rule. The acronym FANBOYS comes from the list of

00:26

coordinating conjunctions...

00:27

..."for", "and", "nor", "but", "or", "yet", and "so".

00:37

Coordinating conjunctions join together similarly constructed words, phrases, or clauses.

00:45

For example, you -- babysitter extraordinaire -- might say, "I told Bert to pee in the

00:52

potty, but Bert decided to pee on the carpet instead."

00:57

In this example, the coordinating conjunction "but" joins two main clauses: "I told

01:02

Bert to pee in the potty"...

01:04

...and "Bert decided to pee on the carpet instead".

01:10

Coordinating conjunctions bring words, phrases, and clauses together, so you tend to see them

01:14

in the middle of sentences.

01:15

But that doesn't mean one of the FANBOYS can't make an appearance at the beginning of a sentence.

01:19

For example, when you terrify your friends with tales of your babysitting experiences,

01:24

you might end a story with, "And then the little brat threw jelly on my shirt"...

01:29

...or, "So I bribed him with gummy bears and Dr. Pepper."

01:33

Although grammar guides will tell you it's cool to use a coordinating conjunction to

01:36

start a sentence...

01:37

...your English teacher may have told you that this is a no-no, for two reasons.

01:41

First, starting a sentence with one of the FANBOYS lends an informal tone to your writing,

01:47

and teens are... informal enough as it is. Second, it's easier to end up with random,

01:53

incorrect sentence fragments if you start sentences with coordinating conjunctions.

01:57

"Or washing the Impala" may start with a coordinating conjunction...

02:02

...but it's just a sentence fragment, and therefore grammatically incorrect.

02:05

Now that we've confirmed it's okay to start a sentence with one of the FANBOYS...

02:10

...thus ruining your English teacher's life...

02:12

...you may be wondering if commas are required after coordinating conjunctions. The answer

02:17

is: "Sometimes." If the coordinating conjunction at the beginning

02:21

of a sentence is followed by an aside, then you need to break out the commas.

02:28

For example, if you were to write about one of the hell spawn you babysit and his penchant

02:33

for harassing the dog...

02:34

...you would say, "And -- comma -- even though Fido hid under the bed -- comma -- little

02:40

Jakey still managed to set the dog on fire."

02:45

The simpler "And little Jakey still managed to set the dog on fire", however, does not

02:50

require a comma after the coordinating conjunction. And that's pretty much it for the FANBOYS.

02:56

You can use them at the beginning of sentences, so long as you want your tone to be informal...

03:00

...and you're careful to avoid grammatically incorrect sentence fragments.

03:03

Now, don't you have some triplets to tame?

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