But

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But is a common conjunction in English used between two or more clauses, which often implies the immediately following clause will be the limit, difference, or focal point of the original clauses.

The usage of but varies. For example:

"It was then but a short step to the idea of selective breeding to improve distribution."

The "but" in this sentence implies that the majority of the involvement in coming to the "idea" had been done. The "but" refers back to whatever steps have been mentioned - probably in the sentence immediately preceding this, and it was probably a very detailed or long process which was described. The inference is that what is left to do - mentally or physically - is probably less than 5% of the overall task. This sort of construction is commonly used to describe how, although A did a huge amount of work on a project, B actually finished it - by being the one to take that last step.

There has been a debate by some about whether the following first person singular pronoun following the word "but" should be the nominative form "I" or the accusative form "me" People that have argued that the pronoun following "but" should be the nominative pronoun form "I" have argued that the word "but" is a conjunction in these sentences, rather than a preposition. The debate has gone on by many about whether the accusative form "me" is appropriate when the "but" phrase occurs at the end of a sentence, as in "no one has seen it but me".

An argument has been made while there is considerable weight of precedent on the side of it, and that it cannot be regarding as being incorrect, that there can be a strong case that "but" can be treated as a preposition, because, the verb following the word "but" would be expected to agree in both number and person with the noun or pronoun, if it were truly a conjunction.

The Oxford English Dictionary reveals that the word "but" is from the Old English "be-uton" (Compare Dutch "buiten", meaning "outside") meaning "on the outside, without" In Middle English, this became bouten and then was gradually phonetically weakened to buten, bute and thus but. The Old English word "be-uton" is itself a combination of the modern word be and uton, which is a form of ut, which is an early form of modern out. It is a call for whatever follows the word to go away or threaten whatever preceded the word. It says that two reactions that do exist cannot coexist and still be associated with effective action.