Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Diagramming Things


Back in grade school, many years before I learned that I loved linguistics, one of the things I hated having to do was diagram sentences. I don't know if diagramming sentences is still taught in grade school English classes, but if it isn't it should be. It's a useful skill for learning good grammar and sentence construction, even if it's a pain in the neck. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Here's an example of how we might diagram the sentence "The thought of getting up and working is alarming":


Sometimes, diagramming a sentence can be more of a challenge than usual ...


And sometimes it can be applied to more than just a simple (or Palinistically complex) sentence ... a song, for instance. Here's an example, using the Beatles' classic "Hey, Jude"* ...


Grammatical diagramming. Linguists kick butt.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* As it happens, I'm famous at work for my rendition of "Hey, Jude" with a heavy German accent. My co-workers are easily amused.

7 comments:

John A Hill said...

Geek!

Duckbutt said...

I hated diagramming sentences too. And they were nowhere like Palin's speech.

Gonzo Dave said...

I'd like to see a diagram of something Trump says...

eViL pOp TaRt said...

Hey Jude is an amazingly facile song but easy to diagram.

Mike said...

The Palin cartoon diagram looks simple compared to the actual speech.

Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer said...

Her speech reminded me of a dog chasing its tail.

allenwoodhaven said...

Great cartoon of a Palin speech! I did a lot of diagramming in english and latin classes. We'd have to diagram entire paragraph-length sentences. Guess I'm a geek; I thought it was fun.