In case you ever wondered - How would I diagram that sentence about buffalos?

[packman]

The sentence:


"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatically correct sentence in American English




Whew, now I'm going into the backyard and watch my tomatoes grow.

[libdem4life]

1. Oh I do feel old now. Not only do I understand it, I was one of the

last educators to actually Teach it. I thought it was fun, and so did my students. It was like a puzzle where they actually visually learned grammar. Maybe that's why the term Grammar School is no longer used. Because it used to be a big part of the curriculum.

[CrispyQ]

2. I diagrammed sentences in grammar school.

In 2008 I tried to diagram a Palin sentence & almost went insane.



ps - I had not noticed the change from grammar school to grade school.

[libdem4life]

3. You just need salad dressing for her sentences.

To be honest, I hadn't thought of it until responding to your post...the change in Grammar School. It was in the 70s...Prop 13 gutted the educational system.

It was about that time that they laid the New Math on us. And the reading programs dropped phonics. I left the profession...couldn't stand the "dumbing down" then "teaching to the test" which I Never Did.

I had my student loans paid off by my 5 years of service. That was the good thing that came out of it, other than 5 years worth of mostly adorable kids.

[mrmpa]

8. The loss of phonics was a disaster............

if I'm not mistaken, phonics had it's beginnings during WWII. A large percentage of draftees were illiterate and had to be taught to read and write. Phonics was the process used to train these men.

I loved phonics, I had phonics workbooks that were great to do. I think my love for reading is because I was taught an easy and effortless way to read.

I have a nephew who had problems learning to read. The school was into the "immersion" way to read. (I didn't understand it). My brother and his wife had to get a tutor, he utilized phonics with him. Reading is not my nephew's favorite leisure activity, but between the phonics and his grandmother getting him Captain Underpants books, he eventually read the Harry Potter series and graduated from college.

I also think phonics should be used in teaching ESL.

[CTyankee]

13. Back in the day, you couldnt take French or Spanish without two years of Latin.

Apart from math, Latin was the most important and relevant courses I ever had. I could figure out the meaning of so many words based on my knowledge of Latin.

[libdem4life]

15. Absolutely...same here.

[malaise]

16. I can still conjugate my Latin verbs

[CTyankee]

23. there's a funny Newyorker cartoon of a guy in a prison cell and a teacher is conjugating "amo,

amas, amat" on a tearsheet. The prisoner is saying "I guess I got the wrong idea of what a 'conjugal visit' would be."

[malaise]

24. Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

[libdem4life]

17. Yes, Immersion...I had even blocked the title of it. Same with my son...

after I volunteered in his 1st grade class (I home schooled him for Kindergarten) I was dumbstruck. Being a former teacher, I talked with the teacher afterwards...about my age...and she just looked down and said...I know, but what can I do?

Phonics and parts of speech makes Spanish exceedingly easy to learn. It is all phonetic and because of some of the "switches" of noun verb, adjective, you have to know what they are.

I had to teach my son both reading and math (he got to use his fingers and toes) or tongue depressors...whatever was easy to count and rubber band into 10s. It's so easy that way.

BTW, I didn't know that about WWI. That's pretty incredible.

[Brother Buzz]

9. "New math" was a product of the late fifties and early sixties

My mother, a mathematician and compulsive counter, taught me old math so I could understand and appreciate 'New Math". Go figure.

[libdem4life]

18. That's what I did with my elementary classes. We learned it the old fashioned

way then it was easy to make the transition. It did fall out of favor, as I recall, after a couple of years. Some of the test scores were horrendous...but my kids did great. I didn't teach to the test, but since they were young and had never taken those kinds of tests, we did practice the format.

[scscholar]

7. I bet it wasn't an acyclic graph!

Loops all around!

[LiberalElite]

12. I liked diagramming eom

[libdem4life]

19. Me, too. It was like a putting a puzzle together. And when you figured

out where the last word went, it was complete. That's how I taught it...like a puzzle and they got it.

[Rhiannon12866]

20. In 7th grade (the first year we changed classes), we had two "English" classes

One was spelling and reading, the other was "grammar" where we discussed parts of speech (still remember that long list of prepositions ) and that's where I learned to diagram sentences.

[libdem4life]

22. You just reminded me of another "modern" trend...no spelling.

My son was required to use a computer to do his (very few) papers and use spell check. Also, they were given calculators to do their math.

I was fit to be tied. I had to give him half his education at home...phonics, math and grammar.

One thing I didn't do, because it is so tedious and would have been a struggle, was penmanship...cursive writing. There is way more to that than just curving letters into a solid word.

California education...using that term loosely. I hope they have gone back to at least some educational sanity.

[mindem]

4. Buffalo is a nice city

Bison are the things that roam the plains.

[Chillidog]

5. I don't understand the sentence.

I understand "Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

i.e. Bison from Buffalo harass bison from Buffalo.

These aren't the five words with which (!) you started your sentence, and I don't understand the last three buffalo's.

[annabanana]

6. Me neither .

Help me dear English teachers..

(I understand the "had had" sentences)

[struggle4progress]

11. .

Buffalo buffalo (,that) Buffalo buffalo buffalo (,themselves) buffalo Buffalo buffalo

[Chillidog]

14. Is this the same thing?

"Boys who eat carrots, eat carrots."

Where does it stop?

"Boys are boys."

This might be poetry, but somehow it doesn't seem to me to express a thought or otherwise do whatever language is supposed to do.

[struggle4progress]

10. It's not very well written

[Greybnk48]

21. Does anyone here know of an available book or

a website where diagramming sentences is taught or explained? An English teacher friend of mine and I tried to find something several years ago and no luck. Anyone know?

Thanks in advance. I may not answer this right away as I have to leave o go somewhere. When I saw this post it excited me because of the possibility of finding a resource.

[Lars39]

25. Found some on the Google....

Diagramming brings back happy memories of Ms Hawkins.
https://www.google.com/#q=diagramming+sentences+book