Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Adventures in Diagramming
An ambitious English 101 student of mine took me up on a challenge to diagram the following sentence, which appeared, comma-less, in a Calvin basketball game program.
Calvin heads into tonight’s game looking to build on the momentum of a 97-93 victory at Kalamazoo Saturday in which senior Ricky Shilts was one of five Calvin players to notch double-digits in scoring as he had 20 points followed by seniors Dan Aultman and Brad Sall with 18 points apiece followed by Josh Meckes with 12 points and Joel Hoekstra with 10 points.
Speaking of diagramming ...
... the Capital Community College Foundation has an excellent page on diagramming, including a diagram of the pledge of allegiance, which you have to see to believe.
Also, my article late last year on the possible revival of diagramming spawned this spirited discussion at a website called The Grammar Curmudgeon.
One other diagramming exercise to embark upon soon is the circuitous chorus of the classic song Whiter Shade of Pale:
And so it was that later
as the miller told his tale
that her face, at first just ghostly,
turned a whiter shade of pale