[Marxism] Diagramming Sarah

[Louis Proyect]

http://www.slate.com/id/2201158/
The good word: Language and how we use it.
Diagramming Sarah
Can Palin's sentences stand up to a grammarian?
By Kitty Burns Florey
Updated Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2008, at 7:07 PM ET

There are plenty of people out there—not only English teachers but also 
amateur language buffs like me—who believe that diagramming a sentence 
provides insight into the mind of its perpetrator. The more the diagram 
is forced to wander around the page, loop back on itself, and generally 
stretch its capabilities, the more it reveals that the mind that created 
the sentence is either a richly educated one—with a Proustian grasp of 
language that pushes the limits of expression—or such an impoverished 
one that it can produce only hot air, baloney, and twaddle.

I found myself considering this paradox once again when confronted with 
the sentences of Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee. 
No one but a Republican denial specialist could argue with the fact that 
Sarah Palin's recent TV appearances have scaled the heights of inanity. 
The sentences she uttered in interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean 
Hannity, and Katie Couric seem to twitter all over the place like 
mourning doves frightened at the feeder. Which left me wondering: What 
can we learn from diagramming them?

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