Start Vs. Begin

 I would say 'Sorry I was away so long', but I suspect the silence was golden ;)

This is something I was asked about recently by one of my new colleagues. (By “new colleagues” I mean ‘one of my colleagues in the translating office that I work in at my new job (yes, I am once again gainfully employed and free of the glass-walled tyranny of freelancing from home – hence the new material. ;)).

Let’s begin, as we traditionally do, with the OED definitions:

begin(v) 1) perform or undergo the first part of an activity; 2) come into being, or have its starting point at a certain time or place

Jakub had just begun a life sentence for murder.
It was beginning to snow.
The cycle path begins at the base of Kopiec Kościuszki.
Our story begins in France, in 1412.
The event began quietly, with minimal fuss or bother.
The road to understanding begins with one small email.
We began unpacking the sniper rifle after the proofreader had left the building.

start(v)
1) cause to happen or begin; 2) to cause a machine to begin operating; 3) begin or be reckoned from a particular point in time or space

Two men started the fire.
I’m starting a campaign to get the law changed.
It began to be obvious that he wasn’t a real  policeman when his gun started leaking.
The kids had already started eating by the time I sat down.
He started the car and drove off.
The lawnmower started with a bang and sped off through the grass.

Now, I’ve been working on this for a while, and I have found it to be quite unsatisfying. There is a great degree of interchangeability between startand begin, and sometimes they’re not interchangeable at all, so it’s very hard to say ‘Do it this way and you’ll always be right’. However, if we look at those dictionary definitions again, we can see something that might help increase our confidence about their use, or at least provide a reliable mental check:

A great song from a great band. If you like songs with proper narratives, give them a listen.

Startis active, begin is passive. In other words, things that start often imply deliberate action, while things that beginoften do so without our intervention.

You can still see that either word could have either quality, but it’s as good a way of putting this idea as any that my stupid brain can come up with. There are other considerations too, but we’ll burn those horses when we cross them. In the meantime, let’s see how the active/passive idea applies to our own examples:

The cycle path begins at the base of Kopiec Kościuszki.
The road to understanding begins with one small email.
Good. A path, road or track etc is an inanimate thing that lies passively on the ground and needs no initial work to be usable. This also works for our figurate ‘road’.

We began unpacking the sniper rifle after the proofreader had left the building.
Could be either, depending on the construction of the sentence. From my own point of view, start, which collocates with finish (as begin collocates with end, (more on this later)), implies a definite, measurable process, while begin is something more meandering and lazy – this ties in with the active/passive idea. Therefore, if we were in a race to unpack the rifle and blow the proofreader’s brains out, we would better start to do so, but if there was no specific, defined reason to hurry, begin wins.

Our story begins in France, in 1412.
Definitely begin. We can start reading a book (we take it from the shelf, open it up and go to the first page), but we begin to read. Of course, we could startreading, but again, it’s not a race.

It was beginning to snow.
You could phrase it either way, depending on the tense and construction, but if you want to make it simple, remember the active/passive rule. We humble worms cannot magically cause it to snow; mother nature has to do that for us.

The event began quietly, with minimal fuss or bother.
From my point of view, began works the best here because although ‘an event’ technically requires someone to switch on a speaker, unlock a door, cut a ribbon, tap a microphone etc, crucially it is not us ­– the audience, spectators, experiencers etc ­– doing it. Therefore, almost like the falling snow, it is beyond our control; we must wait passively for the event to begin. (weren’t expecting philosophy, were you?).

 "Press START to begin" is a typical bit of videogame phrasing, but try finding a good picture of it!

Two men started the fire.
He started the car and drove off.
The lawnmower started with a bang and sped off through the grass.
In contrast, one does not usuallyhang around waiting for fires to begin. Rather, somebody has to get their hands dirty (or bum a lighter off somebody else) and apply it to something flammable. Hence, start is our champion here. So fires, like machinery and equipment, need active human intervention to get going.

I’m starting a campaign to get the law changed.
Mostly start, although it could also depend on the tense. A campaign is not a machine the way a motorcycle or lawnmower is, but it is a quite complicated process in and of itself. Political campaign, campaign strategy, propaganda campaign – not simple ideas. We could say, ‘He began a campaign to free Jakub from jail’, which works well for being  past simple. Whereas, ‘He’s starting a campaign to…’ doesn’t sound right, for being present continuous. Instead, this tense needs begin, as in our law-change example above. (I might have dug myself a terrible hole here, but my brain refuses to think too far ahead on this topic ;).

The kids had already started eating by the time I sat down.
Well, one starts doing things – “deliberate action”. She started a fire, he started the car, they started eating, so this one’s okay.

It began to be obvious that he wasn’t a real  policeman when his gun started leaking.
Hmm. By our current logic, the gun would have to begin leaking. But ‘…his gun beganleaking’ doesn’t – to me, anyway – sound as good here. Started does work for me though, because it has more impact, and serves to make a humorous sentence more funny. Funny because our would-be policeman’s own weapon seems to be conspiring against him, and as a rule, the idea of inanimate objects rebelling against their owners is a pretty funny one. (How about that crazy lawnmower, eh?). What this means then, is that there will be occasions when considerations of tone, style and register play a part in our choice. There might also be a tense issue here (other than the tension headache this piece is giving me). What do you guys think?

Well, it’s a nice little can of worms we’ve got going, so let’s sit back and see how many escape. Before I go, there’s one more thing that I want to share with you: If our idea about start and begin is reasonably sound, how far can we apply it to finish and end? Think about that for a while too, and we’ll cover it in a future post.

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     - Jim :-) (with especial thanks to M.B. for the original question, and the wise and munificent Dotty, without whom this piece would be utterly worthless).

 

Finally, Ghostbusters. Because a) they're awesome, and b) they kept showing up in the
'start begin' image search I did for these pictures. :D