I enjoyed diagramming sentences, and I probably ought to try it again sometime, especially now that I have so many books of theology and philosophy lying around. I'd like to try my hand at some of David Bentley Hart's more torrential statements.
As I watched Sarah Palin struggle to get her thoughts out against Joe Biden, I thought to myself: well, there goes the grammarian vote. Sure, she had every right to be nervous, but that only explains so much. I have to admit that I prefer even George Bush's terse malapropisms to Sarah Palin's mess of conjunctions and appositions. Of course, spoken English is not written English, so diagramming is of limited use in these contexts. But Kitty Burns Florey at Slate tried it anyway, with entertaining results. It's not fair, but it's fun. Although I wish there had been more examples, and, from the very little I remember from middle school, I can't vouch completely for Florey's diagrams…
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