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My grammatical instincts tell me that to start a sentence with, "The reason being..." yields something that in fact is not a complete sentence, even if what follows that phrase is an independent clause with a subject, verb and object. And yet, there have been many times when I have been tempted to use that exact construction.

The example I am thinking of goes like this: "I don't think I can choose one over the other. The reason being...

I suppose one solution would be to not start a new sentence but instead link the two into one sentence. "I don't think I can choose one over the other; the reason being..." The problem with this solution is that it makes for an overly-long, complicated sentence.

I'd like to know what the opinion of the experts is on my question.

Thank you.

T Bell
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    It depends what you follow "the reason being..." with; chances are it's starting a participle clause, which is an entirely normal part of English grammar. Although there are certainly other options, like "The reason being a seagull is so great is you get to poop on parked cars." – Stuart F Jan 29 '23 at 14:17
  • You really need a comma rather than a semicolon, but this makes no difference to the wordiness of the sentence. 'Two [semantically connected: with reason following] sentences', the second starting with 'The reason being', is actually sentence + sentence fragment. Frowned upon by some, especially in formal writing. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 29 '23 at 14:20
  • If you want to start a new sentence, change it to "The reason for this is..." – Kate Bunting Jan 29 '23 at 15:28

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Usually, in formal writing, you see these conjoined into one sentence, e.g.: "I don't think I can choose one over the other, the reason being..."

This is a nominative absolute (see Wikipedia). A nominative absolute consists of a noun and an adjective or participial phrase that are independent of the rest of the sentence. In this case, "the reason" is the noun, and "being X" is the participle phrase that goes with it.

In informal writing, you might see the nominative absolute split off into a separate independent clause and thus preceded by a period or semicolon rather than a comma.

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