An obvious way to break a long sentence or
two or three independent clauses is to make each clause a sentence. Not
so obvious is keeping the conjunction at the start of the next sentence
(or two). This has the added advantage of preserving the link between
them. True, some of you will be aghast at such flouting of the dictates
of your seventh-grade teacher. But what was common two hundred years ago
(see Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations) is again in vogue (see The
Economist).
I fear my memories, of which, good and bad, I have
far too many. But lost friends are better honored with smiles
than with tears. And having too many memories is better than
having too few.
As a single sentence, this could have been a
blur. Instead, the periods do their work of separating the three
clauses, making them easier to grasp. And the opening conjunctions
do their work of linking the three clauses.
Many people choose not to know. But what happens
when your entire genetic closet is flung open during a routine physical?
The bosses of the world's biggest firms have great
freedom to run them as they see fit, and it is almost impossible
to compare their decisions to alternatives that were not—and
never will be—taken. Nor is it easy to separate their
personal contributions from plain luck.
You may open a sentence with Nor when
it follows a sentence with a negative verb phrase (generally with
the word not in it) . . .
A situation in a book is intensely felt because it
reminds us of something that happened to us or to someone we know
or knew. Or, again, a reader treasures a book mainly because
it evokes a country, a landscape, a mode of living which he nostalgically
recalls as part of his own past. Or, and this is the worst
thing a reader can do, he identifies himself with a character in
the book.
. . . or with the equivalent, as with will
be unable, which is the same as will not be able.
