Grammar Girl here.

This week I have a quick and dirty tip for you about starting a sentence with the word

because.

Neil Whitman wrote a piece about motels and regionalisms such as, we might could go to the store.

And finally I'll have a tidbit about the dot over the letter i, which is called the

tittle.

A few weeks ago we talked about whether you need a comma before the word because, which

prompted some people to ask whether you can start a sentence with because.

You can.

A lot of people were taught in grade school not to start a sentence with because, but that's

a myth.

You just have to make sure you're writing a complete sentence and not a sentence fragment.

Because heads up subordinate clauses, which means that if you have a clause that starts

with because, you also have to have a main clause in your sentence.

A main clause is just something that could be a complete sentence all by itself.

A subordinate clause can come before or after the main clause.

And if it comes first, you need a comma between the subordinate clause and the main clause.

Here's some examples.

Because squiggly woke up late, comma, he had to postpone his trip.

The subordinate clause comes first because squiggly woke up late, so you put a comma after

it.

Squiggly had to postpone his trip because he woke up late.

...