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Below is a comment of mine in this forum:

I know "the proportion of" works in both cases, but I'm not sure if "the rate of" does. And what if I rephrase the first sentence into the second one, does the answer change?

Sometimes when I ask questions here, I feel tempted to link my two sentences with "and". I know other phrases like besides, furthermore, moreover, on top of that,..., but I feel like they are somewhat too formal for situations like this, that is asking people on a forum. I mean when I ask questions here, even though it's written discourse, it seems like we're chatting casually to me. But I know we don't start a sentence with "And" or "But", so what would you suggest I should use in this situation?

Ken Adams
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  • I know we don't start a sentence with "And" or "But" : Plato says we can only know things that are true. This is a belief. :) – Luke Sawczak Dec 17 '23 at 05:00
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    That said, there certainly are transitions that may or may not have any stylistic advantage but do give a more precise idea of the logical relationship between the sentences: development, concession, example, rebuttal, comparison, non sequitur, and so on. In the stated example, I see the relationship as one of two independent ideas, so I would go with a generic "adding on" transition like "Also". – Luke Sawczak Dec 17 '23 at 05:05
  • It's not true? :o I have, indeed, never seen anybody starting a sentence with "and" except for me. That's why I feel so insecure whenever I use it that way. But yeah, "but" is kind of a stretch because it's not unusual to see people do that. I shouldn't have included "but" there. – Ken Adams Dec 17 '23 at 05:53
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    You don't need to find a word to segue from one sentence to the next in a comment on a forum of this nature, especially when the next sentence begins "What if ..." You could reorder the sentence: "Would the answer change if ..." That reordering would put the words that continue the thought at the front of the sentence. The semantic flow is better. – TimR on some device Dec 17 '23 at 12:31
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    @KenAdams You'll need to read a bit more, then. :) Meanwhile, here's a good answer on it. https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/52239/ – Luke Sawczak Dec 17 '23 at 18:00
  • Yes, I will. And wow! What an interesting thread! Many thanks for the link. – Ken Adams Dec 18 '23 at 12:44

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