I'm No Paul Krugman. But...
I really like this post : But, And, Why Every once in a while I get correspondence from someone chiding me for the way I write — in particular the informality. I received one the other day complaining about sentences that begin with “but” or “and”. There is, however, a reason I write this way. You see, the things I write about are very important; they affect lives and the destiny of nations. But despite that, economics can all too easily become dry and boring; it’s just the nature of the subject. And I have to find, every time I write, a way to get past that problem. One thing that helps, I’ve found, is to give the writing a bit of a forward rush, with a kind of sprung or syncopated rhythm, which often involves sentences that are deliberately off center. More broadly, the inherent stuffiness of the subject demands, almost as compensation, as conversational a tone as I can manage. My bible in all this is George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language . I recommen