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.
But she was naked! And all... articulate!
Mal ,'Our Mrs. Reynolds'
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.
SailAweigh - Oct 23, 2006 6:11:09 am PDT #4926 of 10001
Nana korobi, ya oki. (Fall down seven times, stand up eight.) ~Yuzuru Hanyu/Japanese proverb
Cass - Oct 23, 2006 6:11:11 am PDT #4927 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.
Robot thinks humans taste like bacon.Mmmm, people...
Ginger - Oct 23, 2006 6:12:02 am PDT #4928 of 10001
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
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.
megan walker - Oct 23, 2006 6:13:56 am PDT #4929 of 10001
"What kind of magical sunshine and lollipop world do you live in? Because you need to be medicated."-SFist
Robot thinks humans taste like bacon.
And everything tastes better with bacon...
-t - Oct 23, 2006 6:14:19 am PDT #4930 of 10001
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration
Yay new TV!
Cute moose.
I never diagrammed a sentence, but my middle school English teacher strongly implied that we were supposed to have done a lot of it before then. I had not. I got by.
Huh. When my parents were in college they did a project trying to differentiate between good and bad wine using some kind of chromatography and failed (they like to tell this story. The bad wine was Fetzer). But an infrared spectrometer works. That's progress I guess.
tommyrot - Oct 23, 2006 6:27:27 am PDT #4931 of 10001
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.
Scary-ass dolls: [link]
Vortex - Oct 23, 2006 6:28:33 am PDT #4932 of 10001
"Cry havoc and let slip the boobs of war!" -- Miracleman
The return of grammar:
I'm earwormed with "SexyBack," only now it's "I'm bringing grammar back...."
I’m bringing grammar back
Those participles don’t know how to act
If you dangle, I will make you crack
Watch me diagram your ass
Take it to the root . . .
Vortex - Oct 23, 2006 6:29:55 am PDT #4933 of 10001
"Cry havoc and let slip the boobs of war!" -- Miracleman
Steph L. - Oct 23, 2006 6:34:55 am PDT #4934 of 10001
I look more rad than Lutheranism
I. Love. Vortex.
The comma today appears to be just as random sentence decoration, except here. Bless you all.
I edit the montly newsletter for a group I belong to; most of the articles are written by the president of the group. He abuses ellipses in 2 ways: (1) he uses them all the freaking time, and (2) I shit you not -- he uses commas instead of periods to make the ellipses.
It makes my head hurt and my eyes bleed.
Theodosia - Oct 23, 2006 6:48:56 am PDT #4935 of 10001
'we all walk this earth feeling we are frauds. The trick is to be grateful and hope the caper doesn't end any time soon"
We never diagrammed sentences in grammar school, but then my high school Honors English teacher spent a whole unit on it. At that point, I realized I'd gotten a leg up on my fellow students by having studied German where we'd spent most of our time on the grammar... so even though my retention of any useful knowledge of speaking German is nil, it really did pay off.
My teacher had us diagramming Shakespearean sonnets which presented really interesting problems, because they rely very heavily on Latinate construction which is about as far from modern discourse as you can get and still be intelligible. Suddenly a lot of these poems made sense to me.