In Variation on a Theme, Book 1, Chapter 9, there is this partial sentence (set in 1980): "and we diagrammed too many sentences in English"
Do students taking English classes still diagram sentences? Have you ever heard of anybody who found a use for that skill after leaving school?
1. Do students taking English classes still diagram sentences? 2. Have you ever heard of anybody who found a use for that skill after leaving school?
1. Yes
2. No
@PotomacBob
1. Do students taking English classes still diagram sentences? 2. Have you ever heard of anybody who found a use for that skill after leaving school?
1. Yes
1. Maybe. It will depend on what school system where. I am 52. Born and raised in the US state of Wisconsin.
I did K-2 in a Lutheran school. 3-12 in public schools. I have a bachelors degree.
I have never diagrammed a sentence.
I am 65, born on a NC reservation, raised in early life on the same, until a move to middle TN. Homeschooled for the majority of my education. English was not my mother's native language. She was taught diagramming when being taught English in her early education. That flowed down to us.
It is taught in the local school systems and private schools and based on a conversation I just had with a high school teacher, always has been in her experience.
My point was largely that it's more about:
Where?
What School District?
What School?
Than it is about When.
Then why mention your age?
To emphasize that some districts/schools not teaching sentence diagramming is not just a recent phenomenon and there for NOT a time issue.
Have you ever heard of anybody who found a use for that skill after leaving school?
Does that include returning to school to teach sentence diagramming? ;-)
AJ
Have you ever heard of anybody who found a use for that skill after leaving school?
Not the diagramming itself, but having been able to visualize how relative and coordinate clauses work in English has helped me with every other language I've learned.
I was never taught diagramming sentences in school, and that was during the mid-70s to mid-80.
1. Yes, it was.
2. No.
Has any writer ever paused and thought "that sentence I just wrote makes no sense, I had better diagram it to find out why"?
2. No, but if it were easier to pass diagrams over the Internet, there have been several times I would have used it on this very forum.
I'm 45, born in USSR. (Taking "English" in the topic as "native language")
1. Yes. (I personally know a grammar teacher, so that's current)
Back in my time, it was too much fun. In final year of high school we lost our native language teacher and our old drunkard principal substituted for nearly the full year. And when drunk he could be downright mean, especially to girls. I'm not a girl but he hated me with a passion (somewhat understandable since I took pocket money from Soros). So he was on lookout to downgrade my essays, and I habitually had 30-50 word sentences. But I wasn't taking his version of commas, and challenged his edits. Since we talk about abominations with a gerund phrase embedded in a list embedded in a dependent clause to a gerund phrase in a dependent clause to a dependent clause, etc -- and there's no optional comma in Latvian -- it resulted in us both drawing different diagram interpretations of all over the blackboard discussing the resulting fine differences of meaning, while rest of class quietly worked on math homework or whatever.
2. Directly? No. Indirectly, it helps with more than can be enumerated.
somewhat understandable since I took pocket money from Soros
Out of curiosity, can you explain the circumstances of that?
I took over school newspaper and made it a profitable enterprise, but the profit hinged in my paper and computers being provided by a nonprofit that... [~5 redundant steps] ...lived on Soros fund money.
I shouldn't have had any profit, even less pocketed it, but free products aren't taken seriously. Plus, at one point I actually refused the pittance school budget had for it and enjoyed complete redactionary independence.
It was 1993-1995. Wild times.
It was 1993-1995. Wild times.
That was the time frame I was there working on the standards reconciliation project. By wild times, do you refer to the frequent kidnappings and other such crimes at the time, or was it the standard college fair?
By wild times, do you refer to the frequent kidnappings and other such crimes at the time, or was it the standard college fair?
No. More of the untamed freedom in the air. Everything was in flux, the social structures itself changed under our feet, but it's not something you actually comprehend from within. Superimpose that with normal teenage maximalism that make trivial student councils appear excruciatingly serious politics, and a gang of about fourty theater nerds taking over whole school social life during their sophomore year...
Well... the general lawlessness was somewhat mind blowing at times (such as rumors of police raping a rape victim when called), but the life as such was, surprisingly as it may seem for an outsider, mundane and generally safe, and it mostly manifested in pure cash economy were nobody even given a thought about taxes under certain amounts, running at red lights on empty streets and such little things. But I do happen to know about a certain drunkard thieve disappeared in the marsch (after destroying a brand new drive-thru farm scale for bottle worth of scrap), yes.
Kidnappings? There were a few (like that case the board of a certain enterprise was left in the woods bound while the business changed hands by raiders) but it wasn't something frequent enough to be on the mind of people, certainly not us, students of a rather elite high school. It was no industry like I gather it's in certain parts of south America or the likes.
Yes, right across the street you could get mugged, and I got in a streetfight or two with those guys (depending on how generous the definition of fight used), but never got actually robbed, that wasn't something happening frequently, not to people I knew at least.
Even in the middle of it all it was normal and expected for first graders to navigate public transportation independently. (Still is. Then, in some recent list Latvia was remarked as one of the safest countries in the world.)
such as rumors of police called raping a rape victim
Did you mean caught? Because if you didn't, I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.
It's supposed to mean... your girlfriend gets raped; you call the cops, they refuse to react; you beg, the cops finally come... and rape your girlfriend again.
It's supposed to mean...
It needs either a comma after called, or just remove called.
As is, it sounds like a rumor of a cop who's nickname was "raping a rape victim".
I wanted to stress it supposedly happened by cops reacting to a call in place, not anytime later in their custody. Moved "called" to the end,
...police raping a rape victim when called
I wanted to stress it supposedly happened by cops reacting to a call in place, not anytime later in their custody. Moved "called" to the end,
Reads much better.
manifested in pure cash economy
That was the thing that stuck out in my mind. I mentioned kidnappings because the people I was contracted through constantly sent us warnings of such. A couple of the UK citizens on our team were kidnapped out of a nightclub. Something (nightclubs) we were specifically told to avoid btw. They were lucky to have some connections back in the UK as the K&R insurance didn't want to pay up after they ignored that warning.
As for the cash economy, I was offered various soviet military items by some of the Russian nationals working with us. As I understood it, it wasn't healthy to be a Russian national in Riga at the time. Several of them were selling anything they could get their hands on to get enough money to get back to where they came from.
The exchange rate was ridiculous. At one point reaching 450 LVR:1 USD on the black market. That didn't settle down until the Lats got into full swing.
That is assuming purchases in lieu of barter.
life as such was, surprisingly as it may seem for an outsider, mundane and generally safe
I got a similar response from the lady I bought my rupjmaize from in the mornings. From an outsider perspective it was definitely different.
As I understood it, it wasn't healthy to be a Russian national in Riga at the time.
Some of them certainly believed so. But you must understand that russian-speakers collectively still were a slight majority in Riga at that time, and it was mostly self inflicted and propaganda supported perception, although their status did change. In USSR Russians were automatic upper class, enjoying both tangible and, perhaps more importantly, a slew of highly intangible privileges.
Also, Soviet military officers got guaranteed housing and work offers at the locale of their decommissioning, and it was popular for savvy officers to arrange their service in a way it let them discharge in Baltic, with was seen as "Π²ΡΡ-ΡΠ°ΠΊΠΈ Π΅Π²ΡΠΎΠΏΠ°" (~ nevertheless Europe) with tangibly higher standards of living than deep Russia. Many of those people were objectively talented and skilled, but unfortunately tended to be deeply indoctrinated -- with was another advantage until it wasn't.
We did this neat legal trick, we didn't start a new country in 1991, we restored constitution of 1922. That let us declare all arrivals and their descendants since 1940 residents and NOT citizens automatically, while offering them to apply for citizenship immediately. That required language and history exams, language they had never needed, and history interpretation they had quasi-religious objections with. As may be expected when you take privileges away and was partially by design, a significant number of people are remaining offended by that, and still refuse naturalization today opting to keep the internationally unique non-citizen status.
Faning ethnic hatred leading to a need to "defend" Russian "brothers" was a propaganda goal effective immediately, and we had no capability no real will to counter that fearmongering, as long provocations could be avoided, and were extremely tolerant folk (to our own peril).
Those who bought in that and did leave, especially those who had been here for a life, discovered they aren't welcome over there at all. They were effectively speaking a different Russian dialect and behaved funny, and thus were immediately declared foriegn and "Π±Π°Π»ΡΠΈΠΉΡΠΊΠΈΠ΅ Π½Π°ΡΠΈΡΡΡ" despite their own beliefs (because yes, the propaganda was ever so much thicker). We got quite a few of them back again (and much quieter, even if not actually loyal).
A couple of the UK citizens on our team were kidnapped out of a nightclub. Something (nightclubs) we were specifically told to avoid btw.
Indeed, day and night city was two different worlds, day ruled by (unwritten) common laws, and night was, almost anything goes, a sin city with celebrity criminals. Nightclubs weren't supposed safe by locals either, but, I don't know, maybe our risk aversion back then was just so low it was... well, it was what it was, night life was rich but risky.
Being an obvious foreigner and/or flaunting money would indeed get you heightened attention from everyone, freelance underage whores to very nasty gentlemen alike, and since law enforcement was not only dysfunctional but very nearly just one of competing mob structures, your risk was your own. By the end of the century it was just a memory of a legendary time though.
At one point reaching 450 LVR:1 USD on the black market.
Black market? There was legal currency exchange on every corner by then... some of them a real shady business started from scratch that very morning though, and you could perhaps get better rates on hand, against even more risk, understandably. USD was almost a second currency in circulation and the official rate you knew like weather forecast, morning and afternoon.
One of those school years my allowance from dad went from 5 LVR in September to 500 LVR by May without increasing at any point (he's an accountant). But thanks to a few genius guys we got it light by comparison to what happened to Soviet/Russian roubles. Lats were introduced at valuation above Β£ with expectations of more inflation, but there was surprisingly little afterwards. Then, we switched over to euro on a particularly bad day.
Thanks for your reply, it clarified a few memories for me.
Black market? There was legal currency exchange on every corner by then... some of them a real shady business started from scratch that very morning though, and you could perhaps get better rates on hand, against even more risk, understandably. USD was almost a second currency in circulation and the official rate you knew like weather forecast, morning and afternoon.
I've had the misfortune to be on the ground in several countries when their national currency was in flux. There wasn't a single instance I recall where there wasn't a difference between official and unofficial (black market) exchange rates. Even in steady or semi-steady countries there can be a difference. This is especially true of South America.
Eastern Europe was the same except the longevity of instability, in that regards, was much shorter than other parts of the world.
Being an obvious foreigner and/or flaunting money would indeed get you heightened attention from everyone
I know of a few people that got some deadly attention from that. Flaunting money will get you killed in an unstable environment anywhere in the world.
I studied diagramming in HS in the early 70s in western Iowa.
I vary rarely consciously diagram a sentence in my mind, but I do believe I do something similar unconsciously when reading and writing.
In the 70s and 80s, we did where I went to school (and you can pretty much guess where that might be :)).
Yes, some students do, but it's far fewer. Googling, I see mostly smaller, private schools who are proudly declaring that their students still diagram sentences. Presumably these are a reaction to "lax public schools". I didn't dig into them in depth.
I found a use for diagramming sentences after leaving school - I put it in my book :) Admittedly, that's a use for having done it, not the skill itself, though.
"Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them." - if not a direct quote, at least a concept attributed to Einstein.
Also immediately apparent to most of us in 6th grade English class.
If we knew enough to be able to use a diagram to find what's wrong with a sentence - we wouldn't have written the sentence that way in the first place.
By that logic, debugging tools are pointless.
That made me wonder whether anyone has experimented with bebugging their stories - deliberately inserting mistakes and counting how many are reported by editors, proofreaders or even readers. By comparing that to the number of unintentional mistakes reported, the author can estimate how many unintentional mistakes have still to be uncovered.
It would be a shitty thing to do to SOL's volunteer editors and proofreaders, but I can imagine it happening in the dog-eat-dog world of professional publishing.
AJ
I haven't, but I do pay attention to how many errors make it through multiple readings, unreported (both grammar/spelling errors and errors of fact). A couple errors of fact have turned been turned into features, as well.
Have you ever heard of anybody who found a use for that skill after leaving school?
Some of what you learn in school has the purpose of having a way to talk while you're in school about what you are learning. The past 2 years, I've been listening to one side of a lot of (distance learning) piano lessons. a lot of time is spent learning, "Every Good Boy Does Fine." I doubt any concert pianist recites that, but it's necessary for learning the language music lessons are expressed in.
OTOH, I've read many published sentences that would have benefited from the author's being required to diagram them before the final draft.
According to many replies in Google to the first question, the answer is yes and no, people still have to diagram sentences in Middle School, Grades 4-12 in greater complexity; and not at all in some schools. Positions pro and con among educational professionals are varied. I learned it in middle school and think it helped me write clearer sentences. Now my grandsons in the present time are not even taught cursive writing, other than their signature, because their school feels it is obsolete.
