The Simplified blog

Grammar is essential, but most of us know more about grammar subconsciously than we do consciously.

Ironically, the problems that are most difficult to solve are often the ones caused by over-applying a grammar rule, rather than the ones caused by forgetting one.

Lately I’ve come across lots of confusion about subordinate clauses. Take, for example, the old favourite: ‘you can’t start a sentence with because’. In a way that’s true. The phrase:

Because Mr Holmes solved the case

is not a sentence. It’s what is called a subordinate clause. It needs a main clause to make it a sentence. So if I add a main clause such as ‘we could all go home’, I get:

Voila – a perfectly fine sentence, even though the first word is ‘because’. Think of ‘We could all go home because Mr Holmes solved the case’ – it’s the same thing.

To revise a basic grammar rule: To create a sentence, all you need is one independent clause: this is comprised of a subject and a predicate. Everything else is extra. ‘It is as if a short sentence serves as nucleus in a long sentence,’ says Virginia Tufte (Tufte, 2006 – see below for full reference).