A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter

A friend of mine posted this article about diagramming sentences to Facebook the other day, so here’s the simple question: did any of you enjoy diagramming sentences or think it a worthwhile thing to learn? For my part, I hated it with an utter passion. I thought it a complete waste of time that didn’t do a single thing to teach what good writing is. I am, however, also prepared to grant that my loathing of diagramming may be influenced by the fact that the teacher I had in seventh grade, who did the most with diagramming in my school career, happened to be one of my least-favorite teachers of my entire grade-school career. It’s interesting to me how perceptions of entire subjects can be shaped by our reaction to the teachers who taught them. Sentence diagramming? Bleecccch. And trigonomery — now there‘s a teacher I couldn’t abide!

So, did any of you enjoy diagramming sentences?

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4 Responses to A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter

  1. SK Waller says:

    I loved it! It was the only time I raised and waved my hand to be sent to the board to show how it was done.

  2. Roger Owen Green says:

    Yes, it helped me distinguish between direct objects, indirect objects. Loved those prepositional phrases!
    Seriously.

  3. Bill says:

    Loved it. Still do it from time to time; it is the best way to parse a statute. It's also really helpful when you are trying to figure out why something you've written doesn't seem to say what you mean it to say.

    There's plenty I was taught back then that will still make me break out in panic sweat, but diagramming sentences turned out to be a thing that was actually useful.

  4. Michael May says:

    I didn't enjoy it and never really understood it until I started taking foreign languages. It took Latin and Spanish to teach me the difference between a direct and indirect object.

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