The End of the English Major

Re:The End of the English Major by kemayo on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @11:36AM (#34971324)

Definitely a pain if you're trying to teach it in a sentence-diagramming kind of way. That said, I kind of wonder why you'd be bothering to do that unless the kids are literally not able to understand what's being said and you need to work through it from first principles. (Which I guess is possible? That all reads as a bit of a ramble but perfectly understandable, particularly if you read it out loud.)

For my part, I've never once in my academic career had to explicitly identify sentence parts.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The End of the English Major by bitwize on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @12:36PM (#34972222)

> Definitely a pain if you're trying to teach it in a sentence-diagramming kind of way.

I can definitely see the first sentence, alone, serving as an extra credit question on a high schooler's English test: Diagram this sentence!

But that's a high schooler from my era (first half of the 90s). Much less seems to be expected of today's high schoolers.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The End of the English Major by anonymouskimmer on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @01:36PM (#34973008)

I'll give it a shot:

Subject: "A throng of bearded men"

Things which gild the subject: ", in sad-colored garments, and gray, steeple-crowned hats"

Additions to the subject: ", intermixed with women, some wearing hoods and others bareheaded"

Verb: ", was assembled"

Object: "in front of a wooden edifice"

Things which gild the object: ", the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes."

And I think the "was heavily timbered" would be a verb if this long sentence had been broken up into two sentences.

So basically I recall that English is typically an SVO language. And other than "verb", I have no idea what these things are called. Maybe "in front of" is an adverb? And the gilding is mostly adjectives (and noun-adjective combos)?

How'd I do?

[ Parent | on HN ]