Grammar Expert attempts to diagram a Palin word salad sentence

[Laura PourMeADrink]

http://www.polysyllabic.com/?q=node/224


"I know that John McCain will do that and I, as his vice president, families we are blessed
with that vote of the American people and are elected to serve and are sworn in on January 20,
that will be our top priority is to defend the American people. " Palin





Lengthy discussion at link. Blurb:
..."The end of the sentence also appears hopelessly ungrammatical: "that will be our top priority is to defend the American people." Although you could fix the sentence by deleting is and treating to defend the American people as a trailing modifier, I think that solution is too charitable. It's not plausible in terms of on-the-fly processing, since the sentence is structurally complete after "our top priority." In other words, is cannot be explained as an initial, discarded attempt. Rather, it is tacked on later and so Palin is guilty of a structure shift in which she loses track of the earlier part of the sentence. Our top priority starts as the complement of be but then morphs into the subject of is. I don't consider this to be the same as a false start. In a false start, the aberrant unit simply has no place in the larger structure. In this case, the strange unit needs to work in two different places."

[grantcart]

1. I took a test before and after and my IQ officially dropped 22 points

[Laura PourMeADrink]

6. LOL. Hi GC ! I think it's scary - especially after I read it's a symptom

of schizophrenia. Oh well - we're not going to have to worry about that anyway, are we.

[grantcart]

11. yeah there is a pretty serious discussion on this thread about it

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=7603380&mesg_id=7603380

[RagAss]

2. The teleprompter hiccuped...

[BlooInBloo]

3. Who's stupider: the idiot, or the person trying to analyze the idiot's sentences?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

5. Are you kidding? She's a grammarian's dream. Grammarians are idiots?

[BlooInBloo]

8. I don't have a lot to say about people who do "water is wet" studies.

[RichardRay]

17. Except for all the times that the study proves

that a widely accepted 'truth' isn't true. Rigor is boring and not everyone's cup of tea, I get that, but don't discount it.

[Trajan]

10. English Professors make a career of parsing sentences ...

This lady is vying for the office of President of the United States ...

I feel it is worth HIS while and MY while for this person to analyze her speech ...

It isn't stupid at all ....

I could not disagree more; for both your comment and your tone towards a fellow DUer ...

[BlooInBloo]

12. (facepalm)

[Takket]

4. ?

That diagram looks like the sanitary piping system for an office building. Makes sense since that sentance and sanitary piping both convey solid and liquid waste

[NYC_SKP]

7. Slate did a similar article, here:

"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."



http://www.slate.com/id/2201158/

[Trajan]

9. This is a regular feature of her speech ...

Disjointed, jittered nonsense ...

She isn't ready for ready for the fifth grade, let alone the highest office in the land ...

[El Fuego]

13. I like the way "families" is floating out there unattached, struck out.

[coalition_unwilling]

20. "Families" is an untethered appositive. Think

of it like a pronoun lacking a clear (or any) antecedent (or maybe even a dangling participle?).

[El Fuego]

21. I thought of it as a metaphor for their "pro-family" bullshit, since their policies are anti-family.

[IndianaJohn]

14. I loved sentence diagramming when in school and was...

really good at it. Of course I never had to diagram anything as ridiculous as what Sarah Palin says. Seeing the complex diagram above just cracked me up.

Thanks for the laugh.
:rofl:

[CreekDog]

15. They need to reboot her software

At least Romney's had fewer bugs. :crazy:

[Laura PourMeADrink]

16. Yes! But, we can thank our lucky stars Mittens, or Huckleberry, or

9-11. They are all 100% devoid of ideas - but they are all persuasive and articulate.

[CreekDog]

18. and for 150k they could have given Huckleberry a head of hair and perfect teeth

so i kinda feel bad for him.

for 150k Romney could have had a new ECM installed, with new and improved pandering. :think:

[Laura PourMeADrink]

19. Ya. Huckleberry could have probably gotten a loose skin tightening

operation too.

[underpants]

22. Well it clearly ain't her family tree