Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences

by Kitty Burns Florey

Book Overview

A delightfully offbeat history of the art and science of sentence diagramming by a veteran copyeditor and writer. Grumpy grammarians, crossword-puzzle aficionados, and lovers of language will appreciate this book.

In its heyday, sentence diagramming was wildly popular in grammar schools across the country. Kitty Burns Florey learned the method in sixth grade from Sister Bernadette: "It was a bit like art, a bit like mathematics. It was a picture...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156034433
• ISBN13: 9780156034432
• Release Date: November 2007
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 7.1" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A History of a Lost Art

"Diagramming sentences is one of those lost skills, like darning socks or playing the sackbut, that no one seems to miss." Thus begins Kitty Burns Florey in _Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences_ (Melville House), a funny little history, personal and social, of what would seem to be one of the dullest topics imaginable: not only grammar, but also a defunct pedagogical tool formerly inflicted on grade schoolers. And yet, Florey (now an author and copyeditor) thought that diagramming sentences was fun, and still thinks so, and even if, having finished this book, you don't start diagramming them for yourself, you will understand what the draw was, is, and could still be. After all, a half century ago, when Florey was in the sixth grade and being taught diagramming by Sister Bernadette, diagramming was a lark. She admits, "I'm not really sure why what was mostly considered a lark half a century ago is considered dull today." It's not dull in this book, though. "You took a sentence," Florey writes, "threw it against the wall, picked up the pieces, and put them together again, slotting each word into its pigeonhole. When you got it right, you made order and sense out of what we used all the time and took for granted: sentences." She makes it sound like fun, and it is. Sister Bernadette, a teacher Florey remembers fondly, would start off with a simple sentence, from which the title of the book comes, "The dog barked," which of course is the first diagram in the book (there are plenty). "Dog" and "barked" are on the horizontal foundation line, separated by a vertical line that extends through the foundation, and the modifier "The" is on a diagonal below and attached to the line beneath "dog". "That was it," writes Florey, "subject, predicate, and the little modifying article that civilized the sentence - all of it made into a picture that was every bit as clear and informative as an actual portrait of a beagle in mid-woof." In the 1860's the pedagogues Alonzo Reed and Brainard "Brainy" Kellogg pioneered the system taught in succeeding decades. Generations of English teachers taught that diagramming sentences would improve one's writing. The problem was that many bad sentences diagram just fine. Noam Chomsky, using the sentence "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" showed that nonsense can be perfectly grammatical, and indeed it diagrams just fine. I never would have guessed that Gertrude Stein was an enthusiast. She wrote, "I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences." Florey admits that Gertrude Stein, for all her enthusiasm, usually wrote sentences that cannot be diagrammed, and gives a sampling, along with Stein's remarks disdaining question marks and commas while pledging fidelity to periods. Florey does believe that despite all contemporary evidence to the contrary, "... clarity in speech and precision and consistency in writing

Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences

I do a lot of writing, both for fun and for profit. Now that I've read Kitty Burns Florey's book on sentence diagramming, I can make a game out of visualizing a diagram of a sentence I've written, or of an intriguing sentence I come across in the morning newspaper, for example. The book has reawakened my interest in the parts of the English language and their relation to each other, and this alone makes it worth the read. An added bonus is that the book is fun to read.

A Page Turner

Kitty Burns Florey has written a book about the English language that is witty, charming, educational, and impossible to put down. "Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog" should be in every high school, and first year college English classroom. Literature and creative writing majors run to the bookstore and pick up a copy. Strunk and White move over. You have a new companion on the bookshelf.

I loved this book!

Who would have thought one could write such a funny, and charming, and informative book on sentence diagramming? Kitty Florey weaves her own 6th grade experiences diagramming sentences under the watchful eye of Sister Bernadette, and then reflects on other writers, notably Gertrude Stein, who was passionate about grammar, and even loved diagramming, (who knew?) but then wrote sentences that obeyed her OWN rules and defied grammatical conventions. Florey's tone, throughout this delightful book, is one of spontaneous humor and warmth. She is passionate about language herself, and seeing how language has evolved, with or without the help of diagramming, is a fascinating look at ourselves, our culture, and gives us a clue about what the future may hold for the written and spoken word.

Barking for Bernadette

This book is a fabulous read: it is brilliant, erudite, easy-to-read, and laugh-out-loud funny. It will teach you all you never even thought to ask about diagramming sentences, but it is about far more than that. Really, it's an exploration of the evolution of the English language, the gap between those of us who MUST speak and write properly and those who say--whatever. Mostly, it'll make you laugh out loud and how many authors can do that? Move over, Lynn Truss and David Sedaris.