The Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences

Click here to go to The Guide to Grammar and Writing (sponsored by the CCC Foundation of Hartford, Conn.) section on diagramming sentences.

There are examples of diagrammed sentences that go on for pages, including an amusing explication of diagramming by Dave Barry.

What a donnybrook it was!

from wordsmith.org

donnybrook (DON-ee-brook) noun A brawl, a free-for-all.

[After Donnybrook, a suburb of Dublin, Ireland, where an annual fair was held until 1855. This Donnybrook Fair was known for its alcohol-fueled brawls.]

For more about the Donnybrook Fair, click here.

"For a split second, you had to wonder if a donnybrook were about to break loose."
--Phillip M. Bowman; Lexington Reaction Was As Ugly As It Was Inappropriate; The Post and Courier (Charleston, South Carolina); May 19, 2007.

Not only . . . but also

from Ruge Rules

The Rule: In the not only . . . but also construction, the two items connected must be similar in kind.

So:

Wrong: He not only painted the "Annunciation" but also [painted] the "Mona Lisa."
Right: He painted not only the "Annunciation" but also the "Mona Lisa."

Wrong: He not only played for Washington but also for Detroit and Pittsburgh.
Right: He played not only for Washington but also for Detroit and Pittsburgh.


Wrong: He not only coached soccer but also tennis.
Right: He coached not only soccer but also tennis.

Right: He taught not only physics and chemistry but also algebra and geometry.

Right: He not only taught five periods a day but also coached three sports.


(This falls under Harbrace's hugely important Chapter 26: Parallelism)

Roll out those lazy, crazy, halcyon days of summer...

from wordsmith.org

halcyon (HAL-see-uhn)

adjective 1. Peaceful; tranquil. 2. Carefree; joyful. 3. Golden; prosperous.

noun Any of various kingfishers of the genus Halcyon. (See the woodland kingfisher at right).

[From Greek halkyon (kingfisher) via Latin and Middle English. Halcyon was a mythical bird, identified with the kingfisher, that was said to breed around the winter solstice. It nested at sea and had the power to charm the wind and waves so that they became calm.]

In Greek mythology, Alcyone was the daughter of Aeolus and wife of Ceyx. When Ceyx drowned in a shipwreck, she threw herself into the sea. Out of compassion, the gods transformed them into a pair of kingfishers. To protect their nest, the winds were forbidden to blow for a week before and after the winter solstice.

"In the halcyon days, the company's total workforce between the two plants topped 3,300 but the decline in those numbers has been ongoing for some considerable time."

-- John Murphy; Concern Over Future of Plant; The Irish Examiner (Cork, Ireland); Mar 15, 2005.

An Oxymoronic Paradox -- the Wisdom of Yogi-isms

Oxymoron is the juxtaposition of the incongruent---that is, the combination of contradictory or incongruous words for effect; e.g., cruel kindness / jumbo shrimp / benign neglect. We all have fun making lists of what we humorously call oxymorons, like business ethics, military intelligence, and so on.

A paradox is a statement that at first seems false and/or absurd but upon closer examination is found to be true and significant. "You can't set a slave free: You can only set a free man free." "Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage."

In today's American parlance, there is a new kind of aphorism, called a "Yogi-ism," derived from the many apparently paradoxical yet unexpectedly wise sayings of Yogi Berra, longtime catcher and manager with the New York Yankees, who once said of fall sun conditions in Yankee Stadium's left field, "It gets late awful early out there."
"I never said alot of the things I said," Yogi has explained. In his 2001 book, When You Reach a Fork in the Road, Take It, Yogi expounds on his underlying philosophies of life reflected in memorable quotes like "It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future," and "90 percent of this game is half-mental." A few more samples: about a New York restaurant: "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." About a friend's large home: "What a house! Nothing but rooms!" And, of course, about the vagaries of the last minutes of sports contests: "It ain't over till it's over!"

(For a fairly complete list of Yogi-sms, , click here.)

Fun Fact: Yogi Berra got his nickname from the way he used to sit with his legs crossed, like a yogi. (He may or may not have gotten this nickname from his boyhood friend, fellow major league catcher and longtime TV announcer Joe Garagiola.) The Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Yogi Bear, with a squat body and a tendency for witty aphorisms, was not exactly patterned after Yogi Berra. (For a while, the character's name was going to be Yucca Bear, among a list of 50 or so possibilities.) But Bill Hanna and New York City native Joe Barbera "were definitely aware of Yogi Berra" when they created Yogi Bear, and certainly it was natural to give the cartoon character some commonalities with the famous ballplayer.

So full of . . . blarney

from wordsmith.org

blarney (BLAHR-nee) noun
1. Flattery.
2. Misleading talk.
[After the Blarney stone, a stone in Blarney Castle in Blarney village, near Cork, Ireland, which, according to legend, gives the gift of the gab to anyone who kisses it.]

"'[Ronan Keating] is really down to earth and cares about issues like cancer and poverty. Also, he really cares about his fans,' said Yang, who said she had met the singer and evidently fell for his blarney."
--Jules Quartly; Ronan Keating Shays It Bescht; Taipei Times (Taiwan); May 11, 2007.

"While" -- a comma makes it mean "whereas"

from Ruge Rules

The Rule: "While" can be used to mean "during the time that," and it can be used to mean "whereas."

In the former case, while is not preceded by a comma.
In the latter case, while must be preceded by a comma.

So: I can't study while my little brother is beating on his drum.
And: The Blue Ridge mountains are beautiful, while the Rockies are grand.

Purists and copyeditors tend to frown on the use of "while" to mean "whereas," because the meaning depends upon the comma and points of punctuation have a perverse way of not being where they should be.

If you choose to use "while" to mean "whereas," it's important to be assiduous in your punctuation.