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In her landmark feminist book Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Mary Wollstonecraft writes:
From every quarter have I heard exclamations against masculine women, but where are they to be found? If by this appellation men mean to inveigh against their ardor in hunting, shooting and gaming, I shall most cordially join in the cry; but if it be against the imitation of manly virtues, or, more properly speaking the attainment of those talents and virtues, the exercise of which ennobles the human character, and which raises females in the scale of animal being, when they are comprehensibly termed mankind, all those who view them with a philosophic eye, I should think, wish with me, that they may every day grow more and more masculine.
For students of English writing the above paragraph has at least two important lessons. First, we should note that the sentence opener is a prepositional phrase (‘from’) which is formulated in the form of a rhetorical question, which she immediately proceeds to answer.
Discussion of Prepositional Phrases as sentence openers
Let’s take a moment to understand the important role that prepositions have in the English language. Prepositions are connective words, and though they are for the most part short they pack a powerful punch.
Assume that it is midnight and that a tourist, who is standing on 5th Avenue and 72nd Street, asks a New Yorker how to get to the West Side. The directions could be a matter of life and death:
“Just go through the park,”
or
“Go around the park.”
Prepositional phrases function as adjective, adverbs, and sometimes as nouns.
When used as adverbs, prepositional phrases perform the same job that adverbs do:
Jacqueline Susan wrote brilliantly.
The adverb ‘brilliantly’ (which qualifies the verb ‘wrote’) may be replaced by the prepositional phrase ‘with brilliance’:
Jacqueline Susan wrote with brilliance.
An abundance of adverbs is a clear sign that the writers aren’t choosing their verbs with care, a habit that leads to wordiness and slow pace:
Leona closed the door violently.
Notice the same sentence with a more adequate verb eliminate the need for ‘violently’:
Leona slammed the door.
Repetitive use of adverbs ending in —‘ly’ should cause the flag to go up:
Leona breathed noisily and wearily.
Could be revised to:
Leona yawned.
Another example of excessive use of adverbs:
No one sang more ardently, lucidly, vigorously, humorously and passionately than Ethel Merman (Schlesinger, Jr. 137).
Could be revised to:
No one out sang Ethel Merman.
When used as sentence openers, prepositional phrases not only function as adverbs, but also take on the adverb’s properties to specify verb relationships such as: time, place, manner, and condition. At the end of this chapter, and for quick reference, you’ll find a list of the most widely used prepositions. Any good grammar book will include lists of prepositions classified as to time, place, manner, motion, and condition.
In the vessel’s waist they hung awhile, until Mr. Blood had satisfied himself that no other sentinel showed above decks but that inconvenient fellow in the prow (Sabatini 91).
After dinner, when we were sitting by the fire, and I was meditating an escape to Peggotty without having the hardihood to slip away … a coach drove up to the garden-gate, and he went out to receive his visitor (Dickens, Copperfield 47).
During the late summer of 1714 all England awaited the coming of King George I. On September 18 he landed at Greenwich (Churchill 95).
During the dull day, in the course of which he was entertained by his elderly hosts and by the more important of the visitors … (Tolstoy, War and Peace 369).
(In the above example Tolstoy embellishes the use of his prepositional phrase with alliteration).
To the young lady, this separation was the poignant climax of all her sufferings.
Through the carport, I could see a patchy apron of grass, a crescent of yard (Grafton, ‘A’ is for Alibi 170).
With any other jury it must have made the impression that he hoped to make. It may even have made its impression put on these poor, pusillanimous sheep (Sabatini 29).
With imagination in the popular sense, command of imagery, and metaphorical expression, Bentham was, to a certain degree, endowed (Mill 96).
This one-syllable—‘With’—preposition is a humble preposition, yet it plays an important role in the English language. Notice how Michiko Kakutani—the New York Times, meticulous, and master reviewer—opens not only a sentence but the opening paragraph and book review of Jeffrey Toobin’s The Nine:
With President Bush’s addition of John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court, the balance of power in the highest court in the land has shifted decisively to the right (21 Sep.2007).
Once the use of ‘with’ as an opener is mastered, it may be repeated for emphasis, as we can see in the following example culled from Jane Austen’s Persuasion:
With the Musgroves, there was the happy chat of perfect case; with Captain Harville, the kind-hearted intercourse of brother and sister; with Lady Russell, attempts at conversation, which a delicious consciousness cut short; with Admiral and Mrs. Croft, everything of peculiar cordiality and fervent interest, which he same consciousness sought to conceal; —and with Captain Wentworth, some moments of communication continually occurring, and always the hope of more, and always the knowledge of his being there! (Chapter 23).
Or, as in the following example from Charlotte Bronte’s novel Villete:
With her father she really was still a child, or child-like, affectionate, merry, and playful. With me she was serious, and as womanly as thought and feeling could make her. With Mrs. Bretton she was docile and reliant, but not exapansive. With Graham she was shy, at present very shy; at moments she tried to be cold; on occasion she endeavoured to shun him (317).
Note how novelist Anita Brookner opens her well received and much acclaimed novel Hotel du Lac:
From the window all that could be seen was a receding area of grey.
Other examples:
Of all the people riding the elevator with her, she distinguished a middle-aged woman in a wheelchair and a well-dressed young woman holding a red plastic folder against her bosom (Guerrero 93).
Of the geese outside the side-gate who come waddling after me with their long necks stretched out when I go that way, I dream at night, as a man environed by wild beasts might dream of lions (Dickens, David Copperfield 14).
Among the privileges enjoyed by the well-born was that of legacy-admission to an Ivy League college.
Within six days after Augustus had been compelled to accept so very liberal a grant, he resolved to gratify the pride of the senate by an easy sacrifice (Gibbon 47).
Behind me, almost soundlessly, came the low scuffling of the dogs in long loping strides (Grafton, ‘A’ is for Alibi 209).
From the British camp on Staten Island the American lines could be seen across the bay on the spurs of Long Island, on the heights of Brooklyn above the East River (Churchill 175).
Other examples in which the preposition is repeated:
Without speaking; without smiling; without seeming to recognize in me a human being, he only twined my waist with his arm, and riveted me to his side (Bronte C, Jane Eyre 296).
Scott Peck in his spiritual book The Road Less Traveled uses ‘To’ not only once, but in sequence:
To our children we say, “Don’t talk back to me, I’m your parent.” To our spouse we give the message, “Let’s live and let live. If you criticize me, I’ll be a bitch to live with, and you’ll regret it.” To their families and the world the elderly give the message, “I’m old and fragile. If you challenge me I may die or at least you will bear upon your head the responsibility for making my last days on earth miserable” (52).
Discussion of Subordinating Conjunctions as Sentence Openers
Secondly, Mary Wollstonecraft uses the subordinating conjunction ‘if’ as a sentence opener, which allows her to make her point with the independent clause.
Mary Wollstonecraft could have opened her paragraph with a conventional sentence of the Subject-Verb-Object (S-V-O) pattern:
I’ve heard exclamations against masculine women from every quarter.
But, as we have explained in other articles, professional writers avoid opening their sentences with the pattern S-V-O because after a while the pattern becomes boring and childish. By placing the preposition ‘from’ right at the opening, the sentence becomes more dramatic.
Subordination of ideas is also a technique that professional writers employ to their benefit. Subordination gives unequal emphasis to two or more ideas, and allows the writer to include subordinate ideas in subordinate clauses or phrases so that they can stress the main idea.
| Search the Internet, or bookstores, or college or universities’ libraries and you won’t find the detailed treatment of ‘sentence openers,’ ‘opening sentences,’ key sentences,’ or ‘beginning sentences,’ as it is presented in Mary Duffy’s textbook–take a look:Sentence Openers. |