diverter valve

[ban-all-sheds]

Well I'm glad you concede, because you are completely wrong on this.

There simply is no such rule as you imagine, and the fact that you were taught it by people who were mistaken does not make it so.

And quite frankly, getting all huffy about "fascinating grammar facts" when it was you that brought this whole topic up by having the gall to tell someone that they are wrong when they are not is pretty shabby.

 

[ollski]

Definition
conjunction (CONNECTING WORD) [Show phonetics]
noun [C] (WRITTEN ABBREVIATION conj)
a word such as 'and', 'but', 'while' or 'although' that connects words, phrases and clauses in a sentence

(from Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)

I can only refer to this definition pasted directly from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary and ask how you can connect words, phrases and clauses in a sentence when the conjunction is right at the beginning...explain to me, I am now curious.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Well - one way would be to look at another dictionary, e.g. Concise Oxford, which says ....connecting words, clauses or sentences... (my emphasis).

But basically you may because you can. It might be odd to start something completely new with and or but (although IIRC the King James Bible does the former quite a lot), but generally you find that it is a proper conjunction which connects the sentence and/or paragraph it begins to the previous one(s).

I can strongly recommend this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140511997

There are more recent editions that that one, but that's the only photo they have.