If the truth were told, I think that most of us would rather switch places with Sisyphus ("Push this rock up a hill? For all eternity? OK, just let me grab my back brace") than parse English sentences. Today, when someone says "Tom Cruise is popular," we don't think of "popular" as a "subjective complement," but rather as an "understatement"; the phrase "ablative absolute" puts us in mind, perhaps, of a special baptizing ceremony; and we're pretty sure that a "gerund" is a rodent. Well, the grammar cavalry--in the form of Dr. Patricia Lamb--has arrived. Using a black marker on a whiteboard in a stark white room, Lamb's presentation is decidedly low-budget, almost entertainment-free (although I did like her description of her parsing days, helped along by ruler-wielding Sisters), and liable to send viewers into R.E.M. sleep. Although presented a bit too quickly for beginners, Lamb's no-nonsense guide to the parts of speech (excepting the "interjection," which, she dryly notes, is a "leftover from Tarzan's days") and the diagramming of "every possible construction in the English language" (including the four types of sentences and various flavors of modifiers, verbals, and compound direct objects) could serve as a refresher course for nostalgic English majors. Optional. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)
English Grammar: The Art of Diagramming Sentences
(1999) 70 min. $59.95. BC Productions. PPR. Color cover. Vol. 14, Issue 5
English Grammar: The Art of Diagramming Sentences
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