My SAT math score went down too. Dammit.

I am sad that I cannot find a photo of my lion on the web.

I could still sing for you the Helping Verb Song and the Preposition Song we learned in 5th grade. Good times.

I learned grammar and diagrammed sentences, but don't remember any of it. I kind of wish we had memorization exercises like Jess describes, because damn do I remember the scientific latin prefixes and suffixes that I memorized. That's a parlor trick.

Not totally off the track, we got any linguistic experts hanging around today that want to talk semantics, pragmatics, Grice's maxims and Speech Act Theory?

Uh-oh.

Robot thinks humans taste like bacon.

I know a bit about semantics and pragmatics, but the other two I don't know.

When I was in the 3rd grade I was required to memorize all of the prepositions in alphabetical order, which seems to me like a fairly useless enterprise. Prepositions are not in danger of changing; and anyway, I've never heard a native English speaker completely frell up a prepositional phrase except in the presence of a much larger problem (e.g. a dangling modifier).

I analyzed sentences in linguistics class in college, but never in grade school. So, I can sort of tell you what you are doing, but not in a this-is-what-the-teacher-wants way.

I am sick today but at work, and that sucks. (The same cough I have had has not gone away, and is in some ways worse, and yes, I have a doctor's appointment for tomorrow afternoon.) I just realized, editing the above, that being sick robs you of all spelling instincts.

Another one here who learned more about English by taking German and Spanish than from her actual English classes. In fact, I still use German in a goofy way to know when to use certain pronouns in English. The prepositions aus, bei, mit, nach, seit, von and zu are all "dativ" prepostitions that add an "m" (or in some cases an "n", but there's always a letter change) to the end of the pronoun/article meant to go with it. It's my guideline for using who/whom, he/him, etc. Seriously. Works like a charm.

Robot thinks humans taste like bacon.

My theory about diagramming sentences is that once you've taken a sentence apart that way, you'll retain some concept of the structure of the English sentence.

The comma today appears to be just as random sentence decoration, except here. Bless you all.

Robot thinks humans taste like bacon.

And everything tastes better with bacon...