The period will start in 15 minutes. vs I can barely remember the beginning of the period. Start has the sense of being a fixed point in time, while beginning could possibly refer to any time between the start and the halfway point.
The comma looks too accidental and unpolished. So again, the best simple rule-of-thumb is to avoid comma-after-so (indeed comma after any FANBOYS) at the beginning of a sentence, immediately following a semicolon, or immediately following a comma. That will nearly always align you with great writers and editors. When do we need to put a comma after "so" at the beginning of a sentence?
beginning stages of chickenpox, 1 I use "an" before a word which I think would start with a vowel in the speech of whoever I'm talking to. For instance, I ordinarily say "an" before "historical", because although I always pronounce "h" at the beginning of "historical", I believe that many people don't pronounce an "h" here. I just want to get along. When should I use "a" versus "an" in front of a word beginning with the ... The beginning of the century is a period of time which is short compared to the century but rather long otherwise; Some people may use this phrase to mean the first decade or even longer.
beginning stages of chickenpox, I might say "At the beginning of the 20th Century women generally couldn't vote but by the end of World War II many nations had granted them this right". "At the beginning of the century" or "in the beginning of the century"? Are both expressions "At the beginning" "In the beginning" valid and equivalent? The first "seems wrong" to me, but it has more Google results.
