From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"However"

There is no original research or judgement, moral or legal, in the use of "however" at two points to form a narrative of the accident and its causes. The sources say (a) that the brakes on the bus failed; but the driver was found at fault—convicted and sentenced to prison—because he had the bus in neutral (I think that's right; in any event in the wrong gear) and was thus unable to shift and use engine braking as a backup; and (b) that for a while he was able to steer it around the curves; but at one point he failed and it left the road. There is no editorializing involved, just coherent retelling of what the sources say. NPOV does not require staccato sentences in list mode. Yngvadottir ( talk) 17:10, 26 February 2018 (UTC) reply

Hmm. It's a word best avoided. You've just managed to tell the story in your own words without using it. Why is it so important to use the word twice? -- John ( talk) 18:09, 26 February 2018 (UTC) reply
I could have used "but", but I tend to be a bit pompous in the interests of encyclopedicity :-) The summary above is deliberately staccato - a, b, heavy punctuation breaks. That's not good prose exposition in an encyclopedic article. Neither is just point - point - point, like a list, and that plus the sources themselves making the connections (note that the driver did time; the accident was officially blamed on his error as well as the brakes on the rather old bus, and that's what the relevant sources emphasize) are why I can't see any advantage in stripping out the connectors at those two points. Would you find "but" more acceptable? Yngvadottir ( talk) 20:19, 26 February 2018 (UTC) reply
I think "but" is better than "however", if the sources justify it. It's better though just to tell the story elegantly and logically, and as far as possible just let the readers see the "but"s and "however"s. -- John ( talk) 21:28, 27 February 2018 (UTC) reply