whether a particular comparison to hitler or nazis is rhetorically persuasive or is excessive and thus weakens the impact of appropriate comparisons is not a matter of hard objective fact validity or truthfulness but at least in instances where reasonable minds might differ a matter of subjective appropriateness and degree several years ago the new york times published a letter of mine but edited out my correct use of the subjunctive case when i questioned the editor very politely and deferentially he explained the subjunctive is no longer used in modern english except for an assertion contrary to fact e g if the earth were flat then which my subjunctive usage in the letter happened to be although i continue to use the subjunctive wherever it is grammatically correct was i asleep when the subjunctive case was ripped from my language did the anglos sic and saxons posthumously defeat the romans and seize linguistic dominance while i was away when i was in th grade the teacher taught the class said that it was incorrect to begin a sentence with because i asked why and gave her a grammatically correct example of the usage she acknowledged that my example was correct but said one should not begin a sentence with because because that often leads to error she was probably concerned about sentence fragments e g because it rained to this day probably because of my resentment of the teacher dumbing down the language i begin a disproportionate proportion of my sentences with because peace talk