Parsing Barbie

I imagine task number one for her handlers was to get Palin to speak comprehensible english in intelligible sentences after her disastrous first few outings. That was probably why they kept her out of the public eye for so long before that "debate" with Biden. Just tossing out buzzwords in a random manner might have fooled a few mouthbreathers but it must have excruciatingly hard to coach her to reach the rest of us english speaking folks.

Diagramming Sarah

"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?"