Herb,
    I read the Zwicky article, and thanks for it, but I am puzzled by his  
stance that "for" cannot be used sentence initially.  (I hope I  
haven't misunderstood what he is saying.)  Joyce Carol Oates uses  
"for" initially six times in her 1995 essay, "They All Just Went  
Away."  Susan Sontag uses the same word initially five times in her  
"Notes on 'Camp'."
    And this is not a new phenomenon.  In "The Handicapped" (1911) "for"  
is used by Randolph Bourne in sentence initial position 16 times, I  
believe.  It's also used, though much more rarely, by several other  
writers.
    (All these essays may be found in "The Best American Essays of the  
Century" by Oates and Atwan.)

Ed S

On May 14, 2009, at 11:58 AM, STAHLKE, HERBERT F wrote:

> English has a lot of equivalent expressions that attract the  
> attention of writing teachers and grammarians.  Consider because/ 
> for, however/but, which/that, much/a lot, and others you can  
> probably come up with yourself.  Here's a link (http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/forbecause/ 
> ) to an extraordinarily lucid and insightful posting on the topic by  
> that extraordinarily lucid and insightful grammarian Arnold Zwicky.   
> Follow the internal links, and you'll see a subtle, perceptive, and  
> witty mind at work.
>
> Enjoy!
>
> Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.
> Emeritus Professor of English
> Ball State University
> Muncie, IN  47306
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