Draw me a Picture

I don't have the sense that middle-school students have classes on that archaic subject of grammar anymore. I just got through talking with another coffee drinker who also grew up in Ohio, and who is just a little younger than me, who also hated grammar. Both of us spent much of our youth reading, and the experience of seeing so many good examples of well-written English taught both of us more than we ever learned in class.

It just occurred to me that I found a good, funny example earlier... ...though this is spelling, not grammar. (From here)

One of the typical components of grammar was learning to diagram sentences. For those around my age, I'm picturing your eyes rolling, and a vague groan of "Oh wow... I forgot about that." For those younger, it was a really obnoxious exercise in, essentially, converting sentences into little maps. People other than English teachers see no redeeming characteristics to this activity. You can learn a little from this Wikipedia entry, and from following the additional links there.

In a piece yesterday at Slate, Kitty Burns Florey does a hilarious job of attempting to diagram some sentences from a particular GOP VP candidate, in Diagramming Sarah. Again, for the younger generation, this might not make much sense. For people around my age, the idea of a grammarian throwing up their hands and saying,

I had to give up. This sentence is not for diagramming lightweights. If
there's anyone out there who can kick this sucker into line, I'd be delighted to
hear from you. To me, it's not English—it's a collection of words strung
together to elicit a reaction, floating ands and prepositional phrases ("with
that vote of the American people") be damned. It requires not a diagram but a
selection of push buttons.

is pretty funny.