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Ah...somebody else notices the use of a word that has bothered me for a long time. I wrote this bit a few years ago:

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But

'But'. A little word. A common word. And a scourge on our language and culture.

When [a large company]'s data department decided to embark on a new, warm & fuzzy management structure, all employees were compelled to take a month of brainwa...er, training on how to interact with other employees and operate in what amounted to a leaderless business environment (which could be the topic of another rant, but I digress). The one worthwhile phrase (not even a whole sentence) I gleaned from four weeks of touchie feelies was:

"The all-negating 'but'."

Consider: "I love you but...", "we worked hard on it but...", "the tickets weren't sold out but...", "the tickets were sold out but..." and so on. In nearly every sentence where the word 'but' is used, the speaker builds up an emotional state (usually positive) in the listener then says 'but' to negate that emotional state. Often 'but' is followed by an inverse of the preceeding statement. Even worse, 'but' is a powerfull enough word that nothing need be said after its utterance, and it still utterly destroy whatever was built up with all the words before it.

Next time you are about to make a statement of the form "X, but not X" consider leaving out the entire buildup and mind-wrenching alteration of 'but', and instead pursue the pure honesty of saying what you really mean to say. Use 'and' instead and change the whole sentence accordingly. It's hard, as it's deeply ingrained in our language and culture. Eliminate most occurences of 'but' and enjoy the fresh clarity of up-front honesty.

ctd 7/97

A subsequent email exchange debated the related word "yet":

"Yet" may be even worse than "but". It's used for the same purpose, and achieves its goal in a more subtle fashion. "But" is a slap in the face. "Yet" is more like the line about diplomacy: "Diplomacy is the art of telling someone to go to hell such that they will look forward to the trip." "But" is a bullet, setting the person up then shooting them down. "Yet", especially when used frequently, is more like arsinic.

Don't forget the grossly unbalanced "but", here is one I got many years ago.

The boss calls me into his office and says "You are my most valuable employee, you work 10 hour days (without overtime pay) and do an outstanding job, BUT I noticed you were 5 minutes late for work today...

I had a prof of Philosophy who said, "If but means anything at all, it means 'and'."

By which he meant, in trying to turn English into formal logic, 'but' == 'and'.

I dunno. I forgot my modus ponens and modus tollendo tolens long ago!

--Bori

"I love you but..."

Yeah, that's the worst one.