Construct ...

"In 2002, the Jiangxi Provincial government granted Dingdong City the right to set up Jiangxi's processing and manufacturing base here, and Dongying City is planning to construct a processing and manufacturing zone that covers 60 sq.km."

It is dangerous, dangerous, dangerous to begin a sentence with 'And', Oristar.

(Dingdong and Dongying are two different cities? I recommend that you lobby the Jiangxi government to change the name 'Dingdong'-- it's rather humorous in English!)

I see, I see. MM, you honor the Bible as highly sacred. Alright, I will no more use 'And' to begin a sentence since this moment.

Nice, I'd lobby them. But relax, the city's name was just a fiction.

Thank you.

It's not that 'and' is always wrong at the beginning of a sentence, Oristar; sometimes it can be used to good effect. However, most times that students try to put it there, it is structurally or stylistically wrong. Ninety percent of the time, the meaning of the conjunction 'and' semantically connects together its two clauses too closely to warrant separate sentences, and it should rather be a single compound/complex one. Save the technique for special stress.

I say it is 'dangerous' for the same reason that I tell my students 'can' in requests is 'dangerous'-- 'can' can be fine, but all too often appears too rude when unskillfully used; whereas 'could' is always safe, even when it seems a bit too polite.

In both cases, they can be right, but are usually wrong; so why not use another option that is equally or more effective?

Thanks MM.

Have I got the usage of "could"?

(1) Would you please show me the way to the railway station?

The sentence is okay.

(2) Could you please show me the way to the railway station?

Too polite? Should we delete "please" from the sentence?

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In your last post, you pointed out that "And" can be well used in a particular situation? Could you make an example to show me, so that I can exactly use the word? Or I will have to insist my promise -- Not to use "And" as the begining of a sentence.

No, (2) is fine; keep the 'please'. There's no such thing as 'too polite', there's only 'too rude'. While some other languages seem to have very structured linguistic formulae for courtesy between various statuses, English relies more on paralanguage and non-verbal indicators. Since non-native speakers are often incompletely aware of these, 'can', for instance, can sound rude. And it could get you into a serious altercation!