Conjunction : Words that Join (and, but, or)

Definition

• Conjunctions are used to join two sentences, words, and phrases together.
• The words used to join different ideas together are termed as conjunction.

Examples:

 

We will discuss three commonly used conjunctions.

When to Use ‘But’?

We use ‘But’ to join two different ideas and make it into one sentence.

Examples:

• In the above example, the two blue highlighted colour sentences are joined with the conjunction ‘but’. ‘The stick is thin’ is one statement, and ‘it is strong’ is the second statement.
• Both the two blue highlighted colour sentences show contrasting ideas. Hence, we are using ‘but’ here.

When to Use ‘And’?

We use ‘And’ when two similar statements or words are joined into one sentence. When two or more naming words or verbs are added together in a sentence, the conjunction ‘and’ is used to mean ‘one word adds to another word’.

Examples:

In the above example, ‘Varun’ and ‘Mehak’ are related as they are best friends. Hence, ‘and’ is used to bring them together in one sentence.

When to Use ‘Or’?

The conjunction ‘or’ is used to show more than one option. However, only one option is possible out of the other given in the sentence.

Examples:

In the above example, there are two options given, ‘tea’ or ‘coffee’, but only one option needs to be selected; hence ‘or’ is used.

Common Mistake

Don’t forget to make use of ‘and’ in sentences where there are more than two names. Only write ‘and’ before the last name. Do not write more than one ‘and’ to join more than three words.

Examples:

Kunal, Mohan, and Kishan are good friends.

Kunal, and Mohan, and Kishan are good friends.

There are three persons' names mentioned in the above sentence. Hence we need to use ‘and’ only once in the above statement.