I could never grasp the concept of diagramming sentences. I honestly tried (yes, Mother, I did try*) but as Maddog said, it seemed a useless enterprise. I generally ended up putting the noun, verb, and predicate on a line and then just shooting things off in all directions.
one of the joys of moving every 2 years as a child was that i missed sentence diagramming completely. it was always next year or the year before. i also missed cursive, thank goodness for typewriters.
The closest I got to gerund in my dictionary was gerrymander. (I did not try the internet computer).diagram a sentence – how do you do that? Draw pictures of the words?Math is useful – I have now started teaching cashiers to add up instead of subtracting when they try to give change. And math does well for figuring out how much you are going to owe when you get to the till.
I knew that many of the readers would beat me to some of the comments.
For example, I could tick off a lot of English instructors (or some commenters) by saying that I sat in English class and never had to identify a gerund in real life.
Of course, I agree with those who pointed out that they never had to diagram a sentence in real life. Once we mastered the skill that was taught as to why the words in a sentence were organized as they were, we would not need to diagram. (Maybe Dani Rice as well as others were frustrated by why the diagram had to be in that form.)
Now, I am ready to pick a bone with Gothic Beauty. What she said is fightin’ words to me, as I might have said the same thing about upper level English. (Full disclosure—I am a retired instructor in math at a community college.) Perhaps she could have used a teacher who really helped her (maybe me?) and then she might not have said what she did. I would tell her that maybe she doesn’t use EVERYTHING she learned in math class (and please spare me the complaints about never using the quadratic formula), but I bet she doesn’t realize that when she wants to compare whether 5 ounces costing $3.79 or 8 ounces costing $5.60 is the better buy, she is using algebra (for example, solving the equation 5x = 3.79 by dividing both sides by 5). I think that she may have been out of her depth in trigonometry (that is more or less a major-league course), but I can assure her that certain formulas aren’t a waste of time. (I could probably throw my own complaints about studying Beowulf in my senior English class or sweating the mechanics of most of my research papers back at those English geniuses who are complaining about math, but whether I use those particular skills I recognize that there is something I can get out of it whether I liked it or not.) (Gothic Beauty, no offense intended—or taken.)
Comicsssfan is unfortunately right. Much math anxiety (as described by Gothic Beauty) is probably caused by elementary math teachers who are themselves anxious about math.
Louieglutz—if you didn’t learn cursive, how the heck do you sign documents?
stlmaddog5 almost 10 years ago
I once knew how to diagram a sentence. Like I’ve ever had occasion to use that particular skill in life.
Tricia A. almost 10 years ago
I still know that stuff, but then I worked as an editor for about 10 years.
Dani Rice almost 10 years ago
I could never grasp the concept of diagramming sentences. I honestly tried (yes, Mother, I did try*) but as Maddog said, it seemed a useless enterprise. I generally ended up putting the noun, verb, and predicate on a line and then just shooting things off in all directions.
louieglutz almost 10 years ago
one of the joys of moving every 2 years as a child was that i missed sentence diagramming completely. it was always next year or the year before. i also missed cursive, thank goodness for typewriters.
Hunter7 almost 10 years ago
The closest I got to gerund in my dictionary was gerrymander. (I did not try the internet computer).diagram a sentence – how do you do that? Draw pictures of the words?Math is useful – I have now started teaching cashiers to add up instead of subtracting when they try to give change. And math does well for figuring out how much you are going to owe when you get to the till.
sheldan Premium Member almost 10 years ago
I knew that many of the readers would beat me to some of the comments.
For example, I could tick off a lot of English instructors (or some commenters) by saying that I sat in English class and never had to identify a gerund in real life.
Of course, I agree with those who pointed out that they never had to diagram a sentence in real life. Once we mastered the skill that was taught as to why the words in a sentence were organized as they were, we would not need to diagram. (Maybe Dani Rice as well as others were frustrated by why the diagram had to be in that form.)
Now, I am ready to pick a bone with Gothic Beauty. What she said is fightin’ words to me, as I might have said the same thing about upper level English. (Full disclosure—I am a retired instructor in math at a community college.) Perhaps she could have used a teacher who really helped her (maybe me?) and then she might not have said what she did. I would tell her that maybe she doesn’t use EVERYTHING she learned in math class (and please spare me the complaints about never using the quadratic formula), but I bet she doesn’t realize that when she wants to compare whether 5 ounces costing $3.79 or 8 ounces costing $5.60 is the better buy, she is using algebra (for example, solving the equation 5x = 3.79 by dividing both sides by 5). I think that she may have been out of her depth in trigonometry (that is more or less a major-league course), but I can assure her that certain formulas aren’t a waste of time. (I could probably throw my own complaints about studying Beowulf in my senior English class or sweating the mechanics of most of my research papers back at those English geniuses who are complaining about math, but whether I use those particular skills I recognize that there is something I can get out of it whether I liked it or not.) (Gothic Beauty, no offense intended—or taken.)
Comicsssfan is unfortunately right. Much math anxiety (as described by Gothic Beauty) is probably caused by elementary math teachers who are themselves anxious about math.
Louieglutz—if you didn’t learn cursive, how the heck do you sign documents?
Interesting discussion, everyone.