sec@konatsu.dhs.org (Sean Connor) wrote:

And indeed, 'But if anything, Ranma looked even more scared.' is a complete
sentence.  It is grammatically correct.  Whether the original author wants
to put the 'but' in there is a stylistic matter, as the original sentence
can be corrected simply by putting a comma after 'anything'.

The sentence in question is not grammatically correct after all, because the
'but' needs to introduce a dependent clause.  That's not done here.

It hardly matters. Given the less-than-totally formal tone of the
narrative in this story, a little grammatical looseness is perfectly
acceptable. The dangling "and" or "but" is the grammatical equivalent of
jaywalking; yes, it's an offense, but not that much of one that it's
likely to get in the way of anyone's enjoyment of the story.

(Full C&C of this fic to follow.)


Gary Kleppe
http://www.akane.org/gary/comics.html
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