And, And, And

Which of these two versions of the same statement do you prefer: I like fresh vegetables and the risk of a frost had passed and I planted a garden, or I like fresh vegetables, so when the risk of a frost had passed, I planted a garden. The first sentence takes three thoughts and presents them as if they were three soldiers standing in a row, shoulder to shoulder, each with an individual duty to perform. The second sentence, however, regards the same three thoughts as seeds, sowing them together so that one arises organically alongside the next. The soldiers have beaten their swords into ploughshares to furrow reason. The latter version, therefore, is the better choice.

Thoughts, in other words, must cooperate with one another in articulating the theme of a sentence. A theme is the overarching subject of a statement, the point the writer wanted to make, which the reader comes to see after putting all the clauses together. We might say, for example, that the theme of our sentence under examination here is planting a garden for fresh vegetables, or enjoying fresh vegetables at home. A theme, whether of a sentence or a paragraph or an entire document, is best stated with a gerund (planting, enjoying), and it is likelier to be found in an independent clause of a sentence, because a subordinate clause works to support another assertion, not make an essential one on its own.

How, though, does one clause support another? By the accurate use of conjunctions. The first of our two example sentences falls flat because the three clauses have only been joined by the coordinating conjunction and, the most general, least specialized connective in English. (Conjunctions are one kind of connective in English grammar, and they form two classes: coordinating and subordinating.) All conjunctions join grammatical elements, but when they join clauses, as is the case in our examples, they serve a logical function, because prose sentences are intended to denote and rationally arrange a set of facts belonging to a theme. If a writer chooses to join clauses merely with the conjunction and, then one thought is simply added to the next, without any logical connection being made clear. Some grammars determine that there are fourteen such connections, with and, called an additive conjunction, heading the list as the most common and least specific.

The reason the second of our example sentences is the better one is now easy to understand: the two instances of the conjunction and in the original version have been replaced by the more logically specific conjunctions so and when. The word so (called an illative conjunction) introduces a consequence or result, and when (called a temporal conjunction) stipulates time or occasion. Our revision of the original sentence is richer, brighter, clearer for exactly the reason that it directs the reader’s thinking through a matrix of assertions. Every clause makes an assertion by joining a subject with a verb (a predicate). That combination produces a thought (an assertion), and when the logically accurate conjunction is placed to introduce a thought, it inevitably connects one assertion with the next, erecting a cognitive edifice for the reader to enter and comprehend the sentential theme.

But there remains the rhetorical fashioning of these grammatical elements. We should notice that in the revised version, the two conjunctions so and when appear next to each other. The consequence which so is introducing is in fact the postponed clause I planted a garden. The connection between those two parts of that one assertion has been interrupted by the temporal clause when the risk of a frost had passed, with no comma between so and when to mark the sudden interposition. In strict punctuation, the sentence would read I like fresh vegetables, so, when the risk of a frost had passed, I planted a garden, but given the theme and the relaxed context we can justifiably assume, this degree of precision would be interruptive.

But there are other possibilities by which to distribute the thoughts of the theme. Keeping the same order of clauses, we could replace the comma with a semicolon in order to elide the conjunction so: I like fresh vegetables; when the risk of a frost had passed, I planted a garden. If that hides the logic too well, we could reorder the concluding clauses: I like fresh vegetables; I planted a garden when the risk of a frost had passed. Or we could modify the opening clause with an adverb, strengthening the idea of result in the following clause: I like fresh vegetables so much that when the risk of a frost had passed, I planted a garden. Or we could begin with the definitive reason for it all, follow that with the result, and push the moment to the close: Because I like fresh vegetables, I planted a garden when the risk of a frost had passed.

Whichever way we choose (and much will depend, as always, on the audience and purpose), we are writing beyond the simple coupling of clauses with the logically ambiguous and. The opposite of ambiguity is precision, which is given the seat of honor on every occasion of good writing.

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