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Simple Sentences consist of three parts: subject, verb, and direct object or complement. For example, John hit the ball.

When writers (students, teachers, or business persons) write straight prose or fiction, they tend to abuse the writing of simple sentences with disastrous results. As it happens, little variation of the simple sentence (S-V-O) will inevitable bore readers. Look at this style:

Esther married young. Wilfred joined the army. Esther and Wilfred got married. Both work and have a decent income. She is a teacher and he is a soldier. She sleeps in a bed, he sleeps in a cot.

If you are putting out a business letter, or a term paper, or any written work, and your prose contains an abundance of S-V-O and little use of any other type of sentences, then your writing will be uninteresting and monotonous—childish.

Subordinating Conjunctions as Sentence Openers

Subordinating Conjunctions are signals, or flags that warn the reader that they are merely introducing a subordinate idea (subordinate clause), and that a main idea (main clause) will follow. Given their importance, you will find a list of all the subordinating conjunctions at the end of this chapter. You should also study Appendix B, ‘Clauses in the House of Language.’

Of all the constructs we have studied so far, Subordinating Conjunctions are extremely important for the scrupulous writer. These conjunctions are the workhorses of the narrative; they do all the heavy lifting from beginning to end. Follow this famous sentence attributed to Isaac Newton:

If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

If I have seen further, is a subordinate clause which is introduced by the subordinating conjunction if. This clause lacks completeness; it cannot stand by itself. Yet, it sets up an expectation in the reader to look for completion and closure in what follows. Of course, what follows is the main idea contained in the main clause (also called independent clause): it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

Besides opening sentences, subordinating conjunction express the main ideas that humans need for perception: time, place, manner, degree, comparison, purpose, result, condition, concession, and cause. Professional writers engrave these conjunctions in their brains so that they can retrieve them and use them at will.

If Mr. Blood had condescended to debate the matter with these ladies, he might have urged that having had his fill of wandering and adventuring… (Sabatini 4).

If any objection can be raised regarding the truth of this one, it can only be that its author was Arabic … (Cervantes 68).

If he had a headache, she was ill. If he frowned, she trembled. If he joked, she smiled and was charmed. If he went a-hunting, she was at the window to see him ride away, her little son crowing on her arm, or on the watch till his return (Thackeray, Henry Esmond 58).

Notice, in the above example, how Thackeray constructs a series of sentences with the subordinating conjunction if, and tacking on an absolute—son crowing—to the last independent clause in the last sentence.

Notice the effective stylistic use of if, by Oscar Wilde, in his essay De Profundis:

If it prove so, read the letter over and over again till it kills your vanity. If you find in it something of which you feel that you are unjustly accused, remember that one should be thankful that there is any fault of which one can be unjustly accused. If there be in it one single passage that brings tears to your eyes, weep as we weep in prison where the day no less than the night is set apart for tears. It is the only thing that can save you. If you go complaining to your mother, as you did with reference to the scorn of you I displayed in my letter to Robbie, so that she may flatter and soothe you back into self-complacency or conceit, you will be completely lost. If you find one false excuse for yourself you will soon find a hundred, and be just what you were before (Wilde 244).

Visit us often and you’ll find many other sentence openers variations that we will feature. We call these variations ‘super sentence openers.’