If you don’t believe me, read this book. Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences is a quirky, entertaining narrative for lovers of words in grammar or literature. The author quotes (and diagrams) Henry James:
She affronted, inscrutably, under stress, all the public concussions and ordeals; and yet, with that slim mystifying grace of her appearance, which defied you to say if she were a fair young woman who looked older through trouble, or a fine smooth older one who looked young through successful indifference with her precious reference, above all, to memories and histories into which he could enter, she was as exquisite for him as some pale pressed flower (a rarity to begin with), and, failing other sweetnesses, she was a sufficient reward of his effort.
And Hemingway:
Isn’t it pretty to think so?
And Gertrude Stein (a diagramming impossibility, if ever there was one):
A DOG
A little monkey goes like a donkey that means to say that means to say that more sighs last goes. Leave with it. A little monkey goes like a donkey.
Just a bunch of fun, people.
So, I ask you, do you know how to diagram sentences? Would you like to learn?
What sentences are you struggling with? Would you like to challenge me with a sentence?