• Steve Jones - SSC Editor (6/25/2011)


    Tom.Thomson (5/18/2010)


    Nice guidelines up to a point. There something rather bizarre though: the claim that "following" is not a noun and therefor can't begin a sentence is pure nonsense.

    ...

    Perhaps, but that's something that we edit for and will not accept "Following is a query..." in an article. It's annoying, and while it might be grammatically correct, these are rules for the site here.

    I've altered the wording to just say that we don't find it acceptable.

    Well, a sentence beginning "Following is a query" is certainly unacceptable using any sensibe rules of style and grammar. Personally I would disallow it because it omits the article "The" which should come before "following" to make the sentence make sense (and judging by the article's suggested fix I suspect you think along much the same lines), but I have no objection at all to it being rejected on the grounds that beginning a sentence with "Following" isn't acceptable at SQL Server Central instead and it may even be a clearer single guideline than describing all the grammatical rules that might apply when a sentence begins with "following", especially since people regularly get them wrong.

    Tom