Can the word ‘hence’ be used at the beginning of a sentence? For example:
Hence, I am not feeling well, I am unable to work.
Can the word ‘hence’ be used at the beginning of a sentence? For example:
Hence, I am not feeling well, I am unable to work.
You can use hence at the beginning of a sentence, but not like that. Because it means "therefore", it needs to come after the cause. If you want a conjunction that can come before the cause, use since.
Since I am not feeling well, I am unable to work.
I am not feeling well, hence I am unable to work.
I am not feeling well; therefore, I am unable to work.
I am not feeling well. Hence, I am unable to work.
I am unable to work since I am not feeling well.
Like Neil Coffey said, hence can sound a bit formal. (I wouldn't say it's very formal, just a bit more formal than, say, since.) I think the most natural-sounding way to tell your boss you're sick would be something like:
I'm not feeling well, so I can't come in today.
I'd rather write your example using since like:
Since I'm not feeling well, I'm unable to work.
"Hence" is a synonym of "therefore", "consequently", "because of that", etc, and being a conjunctive adverb that connects a main clause and a subordinate one, it should appear within the subordinate:
I'm not feeling well; hence, I'm unable to work.
You put a semicolon and a comma after like that, but there are also other ways. I'll edit if I find good examples. If someone can integrate, feel free to do it.
Something no one has pointed out here.
Hence can also be followed directly by a noun. Examples:
He is sick, hence his absence.
It is winter, hence the snow.
I just received a promotion at work, hence the new car.
His mother was a piano teacher, hence his interest in classical music.
In all of these, the second clause is the situation or thing being queried and the first gives an explanation/reason as to how it arose.
"Hence" is a final conjunction; hence it should not be used at the beginning of a sentence in formal writing, according to the Chicago Manual of Style.
Other final conjunctions include thus, so and therefore.
You could rephrase your sentence as:
I am not feeling well; hence I am unable to work.
or
Since I am not feeling well, I am unable to work.
When used in one of its archaic forms it's conceivable to have 'hence' appear as the first word of a sentence.
Hence go I, for the mistreatment I endured.
Hence was my young wife taken, after a losing duel with death.
I'm sure you can find equally awkward constructs that are still grammatically correct.
Needless to say, "Hence, I am not feeling well, I am unable to work" is absurd.
"Since I am not feeling well, I am unable to work" implies the cause ("I am not feeling well") is already known to the listener.
"I am unable to work, for I am not feeling well" is also close to this sense.
"As I am not feeling well, I am unable to work" sounds better if the cause is given as as an information (rather than an implication as in "Since...").
And, if the cause is accented, you had better use "because" reversing the order of the clauses.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
Hence is one of the ablative demonstratives, the others being thence and whence. All of them sound archaic, especially the latter two. Their literal meanings are "from here," "from there," and "from where," respectively, but they can also mean "because of this," "because of that," and "because of which." (cf. also the allative demonstratives hither, thither, and whither.: "to here," "to there," "to where.")
The example in the original post would be correct if the previous sentence expressed an event likely to cause sickness.
I am not able to restrain myself whenever there is dollar margarita night. Hence I am not feeling well this morning, and won't report to work today.