I frelling *love* diagramming sentences. Yes, you may all mock me now. But seriously, it's fun! You get to take them apart and go "oooh, that's how they work!" It's like the mathy part of English.
Wesley: All right. I'm going to let you all in on something you may have trouble comprehending. I assure you however-- Gunn: Vampires are real. Wesley: I was telling!
'The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco'
Natter 47: My Brilliance Is Wasted On You People
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
Jessica - Oct 23, 2006 4:47:59 am PDT #4893 of 10001
And then Ortus came and said "It's Ortin' time" and they all Orted off into the sunset
sumi - Oct 23, 2006 4:48:15 am PDT #4894 of 10001
Art Crawl!!!
I'll see if anyone has any safety pins. (Do I own a safety pin? I don't believe I've ever bought one in my life.)
Steph L. - Oct 23, 2006 4:48:56 am PDT #4895 of 10001
I look more rad than Lutheranism
It was the equivalent of a kid arguing that "me and her went to the store" must be right, because that's how they've always said it.
It's not just kids who argue this, BTW. And their defense is "Well, you *understood* what I meant, so what's the problem?"
Other than the fact that you sound ignorant, no problem.
I seriously fear it's a losing battle, though. More and more people figure that, as long as you can make yourself understood, grammar doesn't matter. Soon we'll have devolved into grunts and gestures.
Cass - Oct 23, 2006 4:51:00 am PDT #4896 of 10001
Bob's learned to live with tragedy, but he knows that this tragedy is one that won't ever leave him or get better.
Oh I used to love to diagram a sentence. Like disecting words. And no surprise teeth like the fetal pig.
Cashmere - Oct 23, 2006 4:51:47 am PDT #4897 of 10001
Now tagless for your comfort.
It's like the mathy part of English.
Mixing math and English? Sounds like my marriage to an actuary.
sumi - Oct 23, 2006 4:55:54 am PDT #4898 of 10001
Art Crawl!!!
Ooh, there was a safety pin in my desk!
Jesse - Oct 23, 2006 4:57:44 am PDT #4899 of 10001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.
It's not just kids who argue this, BTW. And their defense is "Well, you *understood* what I meant, so what's the problem?"
Oy. It's like that email thing with all the letters in the words mixed up, except for the first and last. Have you seen that? It's weirdly understandable. But does NOT mean that spelling is meaningless!
askye - Oct 23, 2006 4:58:05 am PDT #4900 of 10001
Thrive to spite them
I remember diagramming sentences in middle school -- at a public school in the 80s. I don't think we spent a huge amount of time on it, but I found it interesting.
Steph L. - Oct 23, 2006 4:59:46 am PDT #4901 of 10001
I look more rad than Lutheranism
Oy. It's like that email thing with all the letters in the words mixed up, except for the first and last. Have you seen that? It's weirdly understandable. But does NOT mean that spelling is meaningless!
Yeah, I've seen it. The non-editor yokels in my office enjoy sending me things like that.
Strega - Oct 23, 2006 5:01:03 am PDT #4902 of 10001
There was stuff about diagramming sentences in our grammar books. But we never did those chapters. I think some teachers did teach it, but I never had any of them.
She didn't neglect our grammer. She concentrated on it in our writing.
I support her in email. It always seemed slightly goofy to me to teach grammar as abstract theory; I learned to write by reading a lot. Like Jesse, I did learn some odd tidbits by taking Spanish, since then I couldn't rely on just knowing that something sounded right or wrong.
And here's a table that gives you the current equivalent for pre-1996 SAT scores. (My math score went down! No fair.)