RE: "and then," or simply "then"?

["Combs, Richard" <richard -dot- combs -at- Polycom -dot- com>]

Sarah Blake wrote: 
 
> Well, as a complete grammatical ignoramus (I blame the state of
teaching
> in Scotland circa the 1980s), I find the comma-splice-and-'then' more
> readable.

I suspect it's the state of teaching in most English-speaking places
since at least the 80s. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it's true
of other languages/cultures, too.
 
> I wouldn't dream of writing 'press CTRL then click the mouse'.  Nor
> would I dream of writing 'press CTRL, and click the mouse'.*  But
'press
> CTRL, then click the mouse' seems perfectly reasonable to me.  'And
> then' seems so clumsy by comparison; the 'and' is unnecessary,
implicit
> in the 'then', and I stumble slightly in reading as the redundancy
> grates.

Well, you've posited a different example (Chris' original was " Click
Gimfratz, then click the display..."). I suspect none of these
alternatives is correct for this case. More than likely, you need to say
"While holding down the CTRL key, click..." :-)
 
> I guess I'm not exactly using 'then' as a conjunction, but I'm not
> exactly using it as an adverb either**; it's in a category of its own
> somewhere between the two!
> 
> And why not? :)

Because you're not authorized to create new parts of speech! :-) 

Here's my final bit of advice on Chris's quandary:

Forget comma splices. Forget conjunctions. Instead, remember this: Short
sentences are good. Put a period after "Click Gimfratz." Then start a
new sentence. Problem solved. 

IMHO, YMMV, etc.

Richard


Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
------
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
------






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