Because I Said So

by Talia Landes

 

I attended Branciforte Grammar School for seven years. Every morning I trudged up those 100-year-old cement stairs, and every afternoon I bounded back down, dizzy from the new weight of my knowledge-soaked brain. My mind twirled with ancient Romans, plate tectonics, violin chords, ratios, and everything else one expects a girl to be taught at Branciforte Grammar School.

Except for grammar.

I assume my teachers intentionally ignored the subject because the moment they stood up to pursue a grammar lesson, a series of moans, complaints, and “Can I go to the bathrooms?” echoed throughout the room. The proper placement of a comma never struck me as earth-shattering. There was, however, one rule drilled into my mind: never under any circumstances start a sentence with “because.”

One morning I entered the classroom, placed my lunchbox in my cubby and my backpack on its hook, and plopped down on the brightly colored alphabet rug in the middle of the room. I gazed up at the chalk board, attempting to decipher the sentence written there, “A SENTENCE CAN NOT START WITH BECAUSE.” And it was as simple as that. We accepted the law and never questioned the authority of our educators.

In sixth grade, my class was given many presentations on the whirlwind that is junior high, and how to deal with peer pressure. But what I struggled with was that my teachers weren’t able to understand my lack of knowledge of basic grammar. I filled out grammar workbooks like mad but couldn’t apply a single rule in my actual writing. Perhaps if I had known the correct use of a comma, I would not have dwelled on the relatively unimportant rule that “because” cannot begin a sentence. But The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style quotes Emily Dickinson, “Because I could not stop for Death, / He kindly stopped for me;” and then goes on to say, “As Dickinson’s poem attests, there are occasions when “because” is perfectly appropriate as the opening word of a sentence.” This Dickinson poem, titled “Because I Could Not Stop For Death,” uses “because” in order to give the line dramatic effect. The passage as written gives a much greater impact than if it were written as “Death kindly stopped for me, because I could not stop for him.” Starting a sentence with “because” immediately intrigues the reader. It tells her that something happens, and there is a reason it happens, and she is going to find out what the reason is by the end of the sentence.

I no longer cringe at the sight of sentences starting with “because,” because I understand how to use them properly. For example, that last sentence could have been rewritten as: Because I understand how to use them properly, I no longer cringe at the sight of sentences starting with because. It makes perfect sense. However, take a sentence like, “The children stayed inside this afternoon because I said so.” Because “I said so” is a dependent clause, the writer cannot use a comma in this sentence. A “because sentence” can only be switched around if two independent clauses exist. This sentence would be incorrect if it were changed to read, “Because I said so the children stayed inside this afternoon.” Even though I understand the proper use of a “because sentence,” I still find myself a little bit irked when I come across one. “My theory as to why so many people think you cannot start a sentence with because is that school teachers use this ‘rule’ to help students avoid writing fragments,” says Jeanie Ruby, the author of Essentials of Access 2000 and Editing with MS Word 2003 and Adobe Acrobat 7. “You may find this rule useful yourself if you are prone to this error. Thus, if you do not allow yourself to start a sentence with because, you will automatically correct fragments beginning with because.”

But the “because sentence” has become one of my favorite writing tools. It is, of course, not to be overused, however. Still, I have developed a dislike for most grammatical rules, for I believe one should convey one’s thoughts as best one can, whether or not they stay inside the grammatical fences. As Thomas W. Higginson said, “When a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson in grammar seems an impertinence.”