by Alan Townend18. Start or begin?
Where shall we start? Where shall we begin? Shall we begin at the
start, start at the beginning, start at the start or even begin at the
beginning? That last one was good enough for the Welsh poet, Dylan
Thomas in his famous play for voices, Under Milk Wood first
broadcast in February 1954 a few weeks after the poet's death. The
actor Richard Burton intoned the lines:
«To begin at the beginning: It is spring, moonless night in the small
town, starless and bible-black...» The two verbs «start» and «begin»
are like so many couples in the English language a really
troublesome pair because of the problem of choosing the right one
for the appropriate use and occasion. Take these two sentences for
example:
«I've started to learn English and I've begun to learn English». Which
one would you choose? Well, I have a theory about these verbs
which I want to try out in order to test its validity. The difference
really lies in the nature of the two words. «Begin» has a sense of
leisure and «start» has the idea of urgency. They both obviously
indicate the idea of commencing — don't ask me to explain that
word's relationship with the pair, suffice it to say that it covers both
meanings — but there is a difference in interpretation. «Start» gives
the idea of suddenness. In fact if you were sitting in a room and say
half asleep and you were unaware that there was anybody else
there, you would say if you unexpectedly heard or saw them:
«Oh, you did give me a start» or as an extension of the verb: «You
startled me». Then again you could say: «My car starts straightaway
in the morning». If you said: «My car begins in the morning», people
would wonder what it was going to do next. As a further use you
could look at the English translation of the Bible and go to the New
Testament John 1:1, to read:
«In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the
word was God». It would be ludicrous here to use the word «start».
If you want to get on with a meeting because nobody is paying
attention, you might say:
«Shall we start?» And thus indicate that there is a lot to do and time
is important. «Shall we begin?» is much more relaxed. There is a
sort of uniqueness in idea behind the verb «start» as if it hasn't
happened before, take these two sentences for example:
«Charlie (baby) started speaking at the age of two and Charlie
(chairman) began speaking at two o'clock». Back to my original
question concerning the learning of English. «I've started to learn
English» suggests possibly «I have to for my job» or «I've thought
about it for a long time and now decided the time is right». Whereas
«I've begun to learn English» gives the idea that you've taken up this
as a hobby and it might be of interest to other people.
If you had to give the two verbs a personality, you might well