The grammar authorities are going to battle it out today, where they all have a different

opinion about our topics, the merits of using the word for, to mean because, and whether

it's okay to start a sentence with the word for.

Now guest writer Bonnie Tranga writes, the expert's opinions range from, yes, go ahead and put

a for wherever you like, in the middle or at the beginning of a sentence.

To, yes, but for belongs best at the beginning of an independent clause, to, no, no way,

you're not allowed to put for at the beginning of a sentence.

Yikes, who's right?

You're going to upset someone no matter what you do.

While the experts do agree that you can use the word for as a conjunction to mean because

or since.

In fact, it's been used that way for more than a thousand years.

No doubt you'll come across sentences like this.

I was tired after my journey, for I had been forced to bike twenty miles.

You could just as easily use the word because instead of four, no grammarian would gripe

about either sentence.

When you do use four in the middle of a sentence in that manner, one authority suggests

you use punctuation in our example sentence, a comma, before your four.

I was tired after my journey, comma, for I had been forced to bike twenty miles.

A comma here seems to make the sentence flow well and makes it easy for readers to follow.

Now, would any grammarians complain if you wanted to make the bicycle sentence two sentences?

As in, I was tired after my journey, period, capital F, for I had been forced to ride my

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