Please reread what I wrote. I provided evidence that ‘for’ is not unambiguosly a subordinator and noted that the rules in most usage books classify ‘for’ with the coordinators. Semantic similarity of ‘for’ and ‘because’ is no evidence at all for lexical categorization. If it were, then ‘however’ would be considered a coordinator because it is more or less equivalent in meaning to ‘but’ in many contexts.

If you prefer, on balance, to call it a subordinator, I understand the choice, but to simply dismiss sentences that start with “for” as in error overlooks the fact that a lot of standard authorities disagree with you. By dismissing it as a “simple” mistake you are erecting your particular analysis into a hard-and-fast rule that many, many other well-educated writers don’t follow.

And, of course, the use of “for” you cite in your final example is entirely different, as this is the marker of an infinitive clause. At issue is “for” with a finite clause.

 
> On Nov 14, 2014, at 3:02 PM, GERALD W WALTON <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> It is quite obviously a fragment in the technical sense. It is a subordinate clause. It begins with a subordinator. "For" here is equivalent to "because." It is not a coordinator.
>  
> The writer made a simple mistake by including the "for." The sentence stands alone without it. It also could have worked all right had the writer changed the punctuation:
>  
> Correct.
>  
> And I wonder about current-day usage of "so" in similar situations. It seems to me that many people put it in the coordinator category with words like "and" and "but." I consider it a subordinate conjunction (or whatever the term is) like "therefore." 
>  
> And the use of "for" reminds me of a sentence I remember from a 1955 textbook. How is for used in the sentence "For me to go now is impossible"? Betcha nobody reading this will classify it the way that author did.
>  
> gww 
>  
>  
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