{"id":67313,"date":"2014-02-27T13:10:09","date_gmt":"2014-02-27T18:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=67313"},"modified":"2014-02-27T20:24:00","modified_gmt":"2014-02-28T01:24:00","slug":"a-most-searching-examination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/02\/27\/a-most-searching-examination\/","title":{"rendered":"A Most Searching Examination"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"sentence<\/a>

Image via Pop Chart Lab<\/p><\/div>\n

Pop Chart Lab, whose laudable ambition is \u201cto render all of human experience in chart form,\u201d is offering a print consisting of twenty-nine first sentences from novels<\/a>, including one of my favorites, from David Markson\u2019s\u00a0Wittgenstein\u2019s Mistress<\/em>: \u201cIn the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street.\u201d Of course, a print comprised of nothing but text would be not much of a print at all, so Pop Chart Lab has done us the favor of\u00a0diagramming every sentence according to the Reed-Kellogg System, color coded and all. Plotting out the beginning of Don Quixote<\/em> is, as you can see, complicated.<\/p>\n

As a pedagogical device, sentence diagrams have fallen out of fashion; I never had to draw them (if that\u2019s even the right verb) in school, nor was I made to study any grammar beyond the rudimentary parts of speech. This makes me feel like a fraud whenever I pretend to be a grammarian, as I often do. In fact, before today, I\u2019d never heard of the Reed-Kellogg System; it sounds to me like a proprietary method for processing and packaging cornflakes.<\/p>\n

Actually, it dates back to 1877, when it was invented by two men with great names,\u00a0Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg. Though the Don Quixote<\/em> sample is intimidating, diagramming sentences<\/a> turns out to be fairly intuitive. (\u201cAnd fun<\/em>!\u201d adds a sad, sorry voice in my head.) You begin with the\u00a0base<\/em>, a horizontal line; write the subject on the left and the predicate on the right, separated by a vertical bar. Then separate the verb and its object with another mark\u2014if you have a direct object, use a vertical line, and if you have a predicate noun (had to look that up) or an adjective (that one I knew), use a backslash. Modifiers of the subject, predicate, or object \u201cdangle below the base.\u201d <\/p>\n

Nothing could be easier.<\/p>\n

According to Wikipedia, in certain circles\u2014perhaps not the circles one aspires to run in\u2014the Reed-Kellogg System faced scrutiny for dividing up the order of speech. But fear not, Alonzo and Brainerd had a tart rejoinder for their critics:<\/p>\n

\n

The Objections to the Diagram.<\/i> The fact that the pictorial diagram groups the parts of a sentence according to their offices and relations, and not in the order of speech, has been spoken of as a fault. It is, on the contrary, a merit, for it teaches the pupil to look through the literary order and discover the logical order. He thus learns what the literary order really is, and sees that this may be varied indefinitely, so long as the logical relations are kept clear.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

The assertion that correct diagrams can be made mechanically is not borne out by the facts. It is easier to avoid precision in oral analysis than in written. The diagram drives the pupil to a most searching examination of the sentence, brings him face to face with every difficulty, and compels a decision on every point.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pop Chart Lab, whose laudable ambition is \u201cto render all of human experience in chart form,\u201d is offering a print consisting of twenty-nine first sentences from novels, including one of my favorites, from David Markson\u2019s\u00a0Wittgenstein\u2019s Mistress: \u201cIn the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street.\u201d Of course, a print comprised of nothing but text […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2384],"tags":[2970,13006,2059,231,13005,13008,13007],"class_list":["post-67313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-look","tag-cervantes","tag-diagrams","tag-don-quixote","tag-grammar","tag-opening-sentences","tag-pop-chart-lab","tag-reed-kellogg-system"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLook at These Colorful Diagrams of Famous First Sentences from 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