Cutting Out the However Splice

Today's Oz and Ends is devoted to one of my writing peeves, which I call the "However Splice." This appears when a writer sticks together two perfectly fine English sentences with the word however, thinking that creates a grammatical compound sentence. It doesn't.

One example appears on the newly created website of the Rodeen Literary Agency:

Unsolicited submissions are accepted, however, we do not accept unsolicited hardcopy submissions

I don't mean to pick on that firm; that website just happens to have the latest example to catch my eye.

The problem can be easily fixed by forming two sentences, or two clauses joined by the sadly-neglected semicolon.

Unsolicited submissions are accepted. However, we do not accept unsolicited hardcopy submissions.

Unsolicited submissions are accepted; however, we do not accept unsolicited hardcopy submissions.

Even the following two sentences would be grammatically and punctually correct, though one would have to imagine a preceding sentence as a set-up:

Unsolicited submissions are accepted, however. We do not accept unsolicited hardcopy submissions.

In fact, I think that last example contains the root of the problem. We know the word however can appear at the beginning or end of a clause. In other words, we know each of these sentences is correct:

• Unsolicited submissions are accepted, however.
• However, we do not accept unsolicited hardcopy submissions.

So sometimes we let the howevers overlap, producing an error, though each of its parts seems all right.

Complicating matters further, we know that However can start also a sentence without being followed by a period, but only while functioning a little differently (as a conjunction rather than an adverb):

However much we might like to, we do not accept unsolicited hardcopy submissions.

That, however, gives our brains just one more thing to keep track of.