In the beginning God created the heavenand the earth.
1817 (date written), [Jane Austen],Persuasion; published inNorthanger Abbey: And Persuasion.[…], volume(please specify |volume=III or IV), London:John Murray,[…], 20 December 1817 (indicated as 1818),→OCLC:
as for Mrs. Smith, she had claims of various kinds to recommend her quicklyand permanently.
2011 November 5, Mark Townsend,The Guardian:
‘The UKBA has some serious explaining to do if it is routinely carrying out such abusiveand unlawful inspections.’
Simply connecting two clauses or sentences.[from 8th c.]
Used to connect certain numbers: connecting units when they precede tens(now dated); connecting shillings to pence in a monetary quantity(now historical); connecting tens and units to hundreds, thousands etc. (now often omitted in US); to connect fractions to wholes.[from 10th c.]
Four scoreand seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
In Chicago these latter were receiving, for the most part, eighteenand a half cents an hour, and the unions wished to make this the general wage for the next year.
And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps[…].
‘You take it smoothly now,’ said I, ‘but you were very serious last night, when you swore it was Death.’ ‘And so I swear it is Death,’ said he, putting his pipe back in his mouth[…].
‘And, Vera,’ added Mrs. Durmot, turning to her sixteen-year-old niece, ‘be careful what colour ribbon you wear in your hair[…].’
(now dialectal or somewhat colloquial) Used to connect two verbs where the second is dependent on the first: ‘to’. Used especially aftercome,go andtry.[from 14th c.]
As they will set an house on fire,and it were but to roast their eggs.
(mathematics,logic) Connecting twowell-formed formulas to create a new well-formed formula that requires it to only be true when both of the two formulas are true.
Beginning a sentence withand or other coordinating conjunctions is considered incorrect by classical grammarians arguing that a coordinating conjunction at the start of a sentence has nothing to connect, but use of the word in this way is very common. The practice will be found in literature from Anglo-Saxon times onwards, especially as an aid to continuity in narrative and dialogue. TheOED provides examples from the 9th century to the 19th century, including one from Shakespeare’sKing John: “Arthur. Must you with hot Irons, burne out both mine eyes?Hubert. Young boy, I must.Arthur. And will you?Hubert. And I will.” It is also used for other rhetorical purposes, especially to denote surprise
(O John! and you have seen him! And are you really going?—1884 inOED)
and sometimes just to introduce an improvised afterthought
(I’m going to swim. And don’t you dare watch—G. Butler, 1983)
It is, however, poor style to separate short statements into separate sentences when no special effect is needed:I opened the door and I looked into the room (not *I opened the door. And I looked into the room). Combining sentences or starting within addition ormoreover is preferred in formal writing.
And is often omitted for contextual effects of various kinds, especially between sequences of descriptive adjectives which can be separated by commas or simply by spaces
(The teeming jerrybuilt dun-coloured traffic-ridden deafening city—Penelope Lively, 1987)
In U.S. financial contexts such ascheck writing,and is often proscribed within full dollar amounts, reserved for use only immediately before the cent value. For instance, $150 is written "one hundred fifty", whereas "one hundredand fifty" is arguably ambiguous and could be taken to mean $100.50 instead. Some even teach thatand literally means a decimal point, although a standard writing would at least denote the fractional dollar value as hundredths, e.g. with "/xx".
^Starostin, Sergei,Dybo, Anna,Mudrak, Oleg (2003) “*Ānt”, inEtymological dictionary of the Altaic languages (Handbuch der Orientalistik; VIII.8)[1], Leiden, New York, Köln: E.J. Brill
Ac þe ilke / þet zuereþ hidousliche be god / oþer by his halȝen /and him to-breȝþ /and zayþ him sclondres / þet ne byeþ naȝt to zigge: þe ilke zeneȝeþ dyadliche[…]
But one who / hideously swears by God / or by his emissaries /and who tears him apart /while saying to him lies / that shouldn't be said: they sin grievously.[…]
Whan that Auerill wt his shoures soote / The droghte of march hath ꝑced to the roote /And bathed euery veyne in swich lycour / Of which v̄tu engendred is the flour[…]
When that April, with its sweet showers / Has pierced March's drought to the root /And bathed every vein in fluid such that / with its power, the flower is made[…]
c.800–825, Diarmait, Milan Glosses on the Psalms, published inThesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 7–483, Ml. 31b23
in bélrai .i. isand atá gním tengad isind huiliu labramar-ni
of speech, i.e. the action of the tongue is in it, in all that we say
c.850-875, Turin Glosses and Scholia on St Mark, published inThesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 484–94, Tur. 110c
Ba bés leusom do·bertis dá boc leu dochum tempuil, ⁊ no·léicthe indala n‑ái fon díthrub co pecad in popuil, ⁊ do·bertis maldachta foir, ⁊ n⟨o⟩·oircthe didiuand ó popul tar cenn a pecthae ind aile.
It was a custom with them that two he-goats were brought by them to the temple, and one of the two of them was let go to the wilderness with the sin of the people, and curses were put upon him, and thereupon the other was slainthere by the people for their sins.
c.800, Würzburg Glosses on the Pauline Epistles, published inThesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 499–712, Wb.4a27
Isand didiu for·téitspiritus ar n-énirti-ni in tain bes n-inun accobor lenn .i. la corpet animet la spirut.
So it isthen that the spirit helps our weakness when we have the same desire, to wit, body and soul and spirit.
Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor,A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published1867,page49
