On 14-May-09, at 2:00 PM, Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar wrote:
I don't think "for" in sentence initial position would create a
sentence fragment in traditional grammar since it is thought of as
coordinating rather than subordinating. In that sense, it acts like
"and", "but", "or", "nor", "so", and "yet", which often occur sentence
initially without being "errors".
Does anybody know where the FANBOYS mnemonic originated.
I blogged about FANBOYS a few years ago here and strangely, it is by far the most popular thing I've ever written:
But I've never been able to find who first came up with this particular group as the "coordinating conjunctions". The earliest I was able to find that included the same list was Writing with a Purpose by James McNab McCrimmon (1974), where he asserts, "the coordinating conjunctions are and, but, for, or, nor, yet, so." But this doesn't arrange them in the FANBOYS order.
I found a 1953 book by Brown (I've lost the title) which omits so: “The co-ordinating conjunctions are and, or, for, but and nor
An Index to English: A Handbook of Current Usage and Style by Porter Gale Perrin (1939) says, "he coordinating conjunctions are: and but for nor (= and not) or yet".
Composition-Rhetoric by Stratton Brooks & Matietta Hubbard (1905) gives the principal coördinate conjunctions as and, but, or, nor, and for.
Best,
Brett
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Brett Reynolds
English Language Centre
Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning
Toronto, Ontario, Canada