Diagramming Sentences

[rabidsamfan]

There's a neat article here: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/a-picture-of-language/ about diagramming sentences.

I wasn't taught grammar for the first 8 years of school beyond "verb" "noun" "adjective" "adverb" level. I learned what I knew in Spanish classes (and later Latin.) Then we moved to Omaha and in 9th grade I was suddenly in a class full of people who had been diagramming sentences since the third grade. I thought it fun, but I never really learned the nuances. I still am unclear on gerunds and participles. But it never occurred to me to apply the diagrams to learning other languages.

Interesting...

Comments

[goldvermilion87.livejournal.com]

Diagramming sentences has always made me irrationally happy :-P

[capt-facepalm.livejournal.com]

...not surprising...
:-P

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

*nod* I learned grammar when I learned Latin, too.

[amedia.livejournal.com]

ego quoque!!!

[amedia.livejournal.com]

What a fascinating article! It never occurred to me that diagramming sentences was ever a new, wild-eyed, radical approach.

I spent my middle-school/junior high/high school years in the 1970's, so I never learned how to diagram sentences. :-( I pretty much didn't learn any grammar at all in English class; I got it all from French and then from Latin. Maybe a tiny bit more from Greek. (ETA: That was in college; my high school didn't have Greek.)

[dreamflower]

I remember learning to diagram-- probably about 6th grade, and thought it very fascinating. I never knew it would ever be practical...

But when I transferred to the college I graduated from, and signed up to take Koine Greek, I learned that diagramming sentences was a requirement for the class. Of all the first year students in the class, I was one of TWO who did not have to take a special remedial class in diagramming English sentences before we could sign up for the class.

We'd be given sentences out of the Greek NT to translate by means of diagrams, first from the Greek and second into the English. It was loads of fun, and I still have much of that class material.

I still can't speak Greek-- it was useless for that...

[spacefall.livejournal.com]

Gosh, I didn't know this sort of visualisation was taught in schools (formal grammar tuition was unfashionable when I was young, and we learned only the basics in class.) Interesting that an oral language like English can be made visual in this way. Perhaps the linear nature of the language makes it easier to do that - you can spread everything out into an extra spatial dimension :)

[lame-pegasus.livejournal.com]

Grammar is absolutely greek to me. I was never able to explain why I constructed my sentences the way I did (aside from the very basics), and I even use my own language purely "by instinct" (to the despair of my German teachers *grins*)

[capt-facepalm.livejournal.com]

Your scholastic (in)experience with grammar mirrors my own! Only, instead of Spanish, it was French (and later, Latin) where I learned the arcane rites. Up until then, it was only by reading great amounts of books that my grammar developed at all. I am thankful to my very patient interweb friends who have taken the time to beta my work and provide grammatical guidance in the past two years.

(And while I seem to have the commas firmly in hand, I am still, on occasion, uncourteous to my verbs.)