Definition:
A sentence that contains at least two independent clauses. See also:
- Coordinating Words, Phrases, and Clauses
- Simple and Compound Sentences in Gilbert Highet's "Diogenes"
Examples and Observations:
- "Feasts must be solemn and rare, or else they cease to be feasts."
(Aldous Huxley) - "The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the teacup opens
A lane to the land of the dead."
(W. H. Auden, "As I Walked Out One Evening") - "I used to be snow white, but I drifted."
(Mae West) - "We have three methods of joining independent clauses to produce compound sentences: (1) using coordinating conjunctions; (2) using the semicolon, either with or without conjunctive adverbs; and (3), for limited situations, using the colon."
(Martha Kolln and Robert Funk, Understanding English Grammar, Allyn and Bacon, 1998) - "A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on."
(John F. Kennedy) - "Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one."
(Lyndon B. Johnson) - "It was dawn outside, a glowing gray, and birds had plenty to say out in the bare trees; and at the big window was a face and a windmill of arms."
(David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, 1996) - "Tell the truth, work hard, and come to dinner on time."
(Gerald R. Ford) - "I have often wanted to drown my troubles, but I can't get my wife to go swimming."
(Jimmy Carter) - "Trust, but verify."
(Ronald Reagan) - "I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them."
(George H. W. Bush) - "You can put wings on a pig, but you don't make it an eagle."
(Bill Clinton) - "I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land."
(Jon Stewart)

