Grammaticality – ‘Yet’ at the Beginning of a Sentence
adverbsgrammaticalitysentence-starts
Can one use "Yet" at the beginning of a sentence as follows?
Yet, he came late.
Is this grammatical?
Best Answer
That should be like this, without a comma:
Yet he came late.
With random selections from Wolfe, Martin, and Tolkien, we have these examples:
Yet who could have said what it meant?
Yet how strange that Gunnie should sail the empty seas of time to become Burgundofara again.
Yet the Lord of Gondor is not to be made the tool of other men’s purposes, however worthy.
Yet, Master Peregrin, to be only a man of arms of the Guard of the Tower of Gondor is held worthy in the City, and such men have honour in the land.
Yet, maybe, he would not have done so, and the journey of Boromir was doomed.
Yet the slowness of my fall did nothing to allay the terror I felt in falling.
Yet there is a way.
Yet the anima will not be erased in you by that writing.
Yet, though before all was won the Battle of Five Armies was fought, and Thorin was slain, and many deeds of renown were done, the matter would scarcely have concerned later history, or earned more than a note in the long annals of the Third Age, but for an ‘accident’ by the way.
Yet I stood, as it were, at the bottom of a bowl.
Yet I will wed with the White Lady of Rohan, if it be her will.
Yet none were mine.
Yet you comfort me.
Yet it seems to me upon reflection to be not so strange after all.
Yet sometimes, particularly in the sleepy hours around noon, there was little to watch.
Yet, though you fight upon an alien field, the glory that you reap there shall be your own for ever.
Yet I also knew there was truth in it, that it was a proximity in time I felt.
Yet no attack came.
Yet leaving aside all these chance associations, the rain might be a blessing indeed.
Small children have a particular writing style that teachers often mark as wrong.
We had a field trip. And we went to the zoo. And we saw monkeys. And they were funny. And then we went home. And the bus was noisy.
Nobody thinks that's a well-written story. So the teacher circles all the "And"s and says "don't start a sentence with and". But somehow we all internalize that as a rule for all of life — which it isn't.
This sounds like a personal preference rather than anything to do with the way English is actually used. It was good enough for such talented writers as Robert Louis Stevenson:
Already in our society . . . the bourgeois is too much cottoned about for
any zest in living.
and Betrand Russell:
Already in December 1676 Leibniz held that not all possibles exist.
Best Answer
That should be like this, without a comma:
With random selections from Wolfe, Martin, and Tolkien, we have these examples: