Have you had to diagram a sentence since you left high school?

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ultimate_ed@reddit

No, it was a useful phase of learning language that paid off for the rest of our lives.

I don't have any issues with the kids not learning cursive anymore, but I was deeply disappointed that sentence diagramming is something my children never went through in school. While they're smart and capable, grammar is something that none are very strong at.

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PackageDelicious2457@reddit

The point of diagraming sentences was so that you understand how the language works. It's not a skill anyone was trying to train you to do.

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ultimate_ed@reddit

Exactly! I haven't done any spelling tests since I was in school either, but the lessons have proven invaluable.

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drinkers-peace@reddit

Nope. No algebra equations either!

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elspotto@reddit

Well yes, but I studied linguistics as part of my degree program. We even had an entire class called “English grammar for foreign languages” where we went back over things like diagramming to help us think through grammar of foreign languages.

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therelybare5@reddit

Yeah, I use it everyday! 🙄

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LaVida2@reddit

I somehow managed to skip this exercise. I was a military brat and we moved while I was in the middle of 10th grade.

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adashiel@reddit

The first I ever heard of it was 8th grade and then it was never mentioned again. I was reasonably good at it, though.

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CountHonorius@reddit

Never ever, but I was a champ at diagramming in 10th grade English. Little things please little minds, lol

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duggans41@reddit

Yea. To teach programming.

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Apprehensive-Rub-609@reddit

I HATED diagramming sentences and never understood the value of it. And, I have always been praised by my professors, managers, colleagues for being a pretty good writer.

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wjrj@reddit

Yes , just in case.

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Juan-Quixote@reddit

I couldn’t define what an adjective is if you were holding a gun to my head.

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Threefrogtreefrog@reddit

Not raised on schoolhouse rock?

https://youtu.be/fNriI8SbRgc

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mstermind@reddit

Yes, but only because I teach languages.

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W0nderingMe@reddit

I LOVED distal sentences and often do it in my head. Also I had one class in a science writing Masters course where we did it.

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tigerlilywhiskers@reddit

I loved it too, and still do if I'm bored. It's my doodles sometimes 😅 I was also one of ones who got super excited when the teacher would come in and say "We're going to write an essay." I loved writing those.

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dadsgoingtoprison@reddit

Yes, but only because I taught 8th grade English for a year.

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IWNCGTA@reddit

I took a really hard grammar class in high school and I’m still very thankful.

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Roofofcar@reddit

Same here, though I suspect that you, like me, have found yourself being accused of being an AI simply because you know what is supposed to be hyphenated.

I wrote fifty-five-year-old the other day, and found myself accused of being a clanker.

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wwhijr@reddit

As useless as algebra

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FitEggplant77@reddit

We use algebra every day solving problems. We just don’t recognize it as algebra without 2x+3y.

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bored2death2@reddit

Yep. Want to know how much SOD to buy to replace what the )!@(*# skunk tore up over the weekend? Algebra and bit of geometry.

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TakkataMSF@reddit

This is a very specific example.

Solve for Skunk.

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NaDarach@reddit

Algebra has a lot of real-world applications.

I most often use algebra in carpentry projects and cooking, but my favorite example of a practical use of algebra is the routing of garbage and delivery trucks. Algebra is used to figure out the most efficient route for a given truck, for both time and cost.

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CoyotesVoice@reddit

NGL. I used the Pythagoran theorem to settle a question at the bar I work at faster than Google could solve it.

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TowerOfSisyphus@reddit

Yes. I didn't know when I left high school that I'd be back again to teach English for 10 years.

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keirmeister@reddit

Yes, but that’s because I work in the Natural Language part of AI.

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someguymark@reddit

I couldn’t do it even while I was in school. Never could wrap my head around it.😕

Mind you, it wasn’t HS, but seventh grade, in Canada. I guess it would’ve helped if I knew what an adjective, noun, and preposition were!🤷‍♂️

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readzalot1@reddit

Also Canada, also grade 7. I remember diagramming a paragraph written by Winston Churchill, and how complicated it was.

I haven’t used it as such, but I do remember doing it, and seeing it all as a puzzle to be solved. Weird, but not horrible.

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Dismal-Sail1027@reddit

Curious to know why you think it was a waste of time? My guess is because you haven’t used it since, and it isn’t used for a job? Well…with artificial intelligence taking all of the jobs, I think that in the near future, nearly every skill we ever bothered with learning can be seen as a waste of time. “We don’t need your skills,” and “you are easily replaced” are waiting for everyone. Perhaps our entire lives will be a “waste of time.”

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NoUniqueNameNeeded@reddit

Never had to diagram a sentence that I know of.

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Cronuts13@reddit

Helping my daughter with her homework

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krakatoa83@reddit

We did that in elementary school not high school

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Phantomtastic@reddit

Same for me.

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Iron_Chic@reddit

Same. I think OP may have been on the "late birds" side of the class

(jk!)

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D-Alembert@reddit

Relevant SMBC:

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/679/580/00b.png

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Phantomtastic@reddit

I never diagrammed a sentence in high school. Last time was in elementary school.

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Intrepid_Practice956@reddit

Yes, helps with editing and language learning.

And I used algebra all the time at a job I had at a yarn store.

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turtle0831@reddit

Yes but I’m in college now lol.

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RepliesOnlyToIdiots@reddit

Yes, I absolutely have. I’m a compiler author (computer languages), and I love linguistics. It provides clarity.

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bored2death2@reddit

No. I haven't - but from that micro experience I realized that you could use some of the same technique in a macro scale in organizing thoughts into a 5 paragraph essay up to a multiple page term paper.

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GoinMinoan@reddit

yeah, I did to prove a point at my copy editing job--that they'd used the wrong verb form and my edit was fucking correct.

it was very satisfying.

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FitEggplant77@reddit

I took advanced grammar as a fun elective senior year in high school. We diagrammed sentences that filled the entire room. Looking back, they must have been run-ons.

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crp5591@reddit

No, but diagramming did teach me grammar, syntax, and how to write well.

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chrispd01@reddit

I would bet significant money that almost no one on this sub could explain what a direct object is…..

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the_other_50_percent@reddit

You lose. - Calvin Coolidge

So, what significant amount did I just win?

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chrispd01@reddit

Well I think its still almost no one. But I still haven’t seen an explanation…

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SaltyBlackBroad@reddit

It's a shame that grammar, syntax, and writing well are no longer a requirement.

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redfyv@reddit

I had to in college but I was an English Education major.

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Bax2021@reddit

Diagramming gave me a better understanding of language. I loved doing it!

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Worth_Affect_4014@reddit

Me too. I picked up basic programming and in college symbolic logic out of it. It feels so good to do it.

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Ragequit_AltF4@reddit

I absolutely hated diagramming sentences in middle school. Mostly the part when it was my turn to put it up on the chalkboard so the teacher could tell me all of mistakes in front of 2 dozen or so other kids.

I was so happy when I left private school and went to public high school and never had to diagram a single sentence ever again.

But y'all do your thang.

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Junior_Ad_3301@reddit

Jr high

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PinkyandElric@reddit

No but if someone could diagram that whole "buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo" thing from earlier today I'd be ... happy?

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the_other_50_percent@reddit

Pretty simple, really. One dependent clause and then just adjectives and nouns.

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herbwannabe@reddit

It helps me with adjectives and plurals bc i can pick out the noun and stuff and make the plural or singular correct. So it wasnt a waste for me.

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erilaz7@reddit

It wasn't the same kind of diagramming as what I learned in my younger days, but I did have to diagram some sentences when I took a course in German syntax in grad school.

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OreoSpeedwaggon@reddit

The point of diagramming sentences in high school wasn't so people would know how to do it after they graduated. The point was to get people to understand proper sentence structure, syntax, and grammar -- useful life skills that come in handy for writing, speaking, composing emails, etc.

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coolmommytm@reddit

Which is why I teach it now! It’s such a useful tool for visualizing sentence structure and understanding modifiers.

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sumbozo1@reddit

That's right. The difference between good grammar and bad is knowing your shit or knowing you're shit

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SoylentGreenIsCreepl@reddit

I put parentheses around prepositional phrases in my head all the time. It was a learning practice we did in school, and it just somehow stuck. 😄

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crone_Andre3000@reddit

Omg I was just thinking about doing this other night! I loved it! Doubles underlines and triple underlines - loved it.

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SuchDogeHodler@reddit

When my daughter needed help.

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ku_78@reddit

Yes. I won some corporate arguments because I vaguely remembered how to do it.

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No_Hovercraft_821@reddit

I feel like I may have had to do it in college. I know my wife did, but she was good at it; I spent my time in the math/science building.

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TowelFine6933@reddit

No. But, understanding how to do it has helped with my comprehension of legal writing.

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Aynitsa@reddit

Hated those things!!

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LadyNorbert@reddit

Agreed! I loved and excelled in my English classes, but diagramming sentences was always nonsensical and pointless to me. Why ruin perfectly good words by turning them into long division?

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Active_Assignment_65@reddit

What is this “diagraming a sentence” you speak of?

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lemoncreamcakes@reddit

English, spelling, and reading came very easily to me. I had no problems learning sentence structure. Then came diagramming. I couldn't grasp it. It made zero sense to me. I dreaded those classes. But if I was asked about sentence structure I could answer the question. But not as a diagram. My parents didn't understand why I got As in English yet failed diagramming. It just made no sense to me at all. 🤷‍♀️

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EverythingScrolling@reddit

Same here.

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Paratwa@reddit

I do it naturally but writing that way ‘sounds’ weird on boards and such and will come off as pretentious.

Which would turns into :

It comes naturally to me, but on message boards, writing that way sounds strange and comes off as pretentious.

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mldyfox@reddit

Not so much on paper, with the diagonal lines and all that. But, sometimes I do it in my head when I'm looking to write a long complex sentence. Since, ya know, where you put the words and what tense you use and where you put a comma matters in terms of the message you mean to convey.

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limprichard@reddit

Had to?!?! I CHOOSE to!!

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often_awkward@reddit

No, but I still have impeccable grammar.

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Br00klynBelle@reddit

I actually never learned how to diagram a sentence in school. Ever.

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InevitableOk5017@reddit

Only when drunk and I was trying to understand the sentence.

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RetroactiveRecursion@reddit

I actually really liked and was pretty good at diagramming.

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Available_Leather_10@reddit

As adults, we call it “parsing”.

I parse sentences almost every day, for fun and profit.

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kategoad@reddit

I parse for profit too. I translate the tax code for people who aren't tax lawyers.

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Strong_Web_3404@reddit

Yes, in college and grad school.

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Hockey1899@reddit

As a professor, I wish they still taught diagramming sentences so students understood sentence construction, and what subjects and objects are...not to mention nouns and verbs.

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kategoad@reddit

As an extremely online person, I started diagramming the 14th amendment to argue about due process, then realized what I was doing, closed my iPad, and went outside to pet some goats. Because I clearly needed to touch grass.

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MattieRiley@reddit

Not one😂

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sweetassassin@reddit

what was the point of diagramming sentences?

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Simple_Shake_5345@reddit

No. Diagramming sentences might have been the single most stupid thing I had to do in Junior High and High School. Literally got nothing out of it other than bad grades.

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Dogzillas_Mom@reddit

I am an editor, so I use that knowledge every single day. I have mentally diagrammed sentences to prove my point that moving a word to another place in the sentence doesn’t change the part of speech.

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R86Reddit@reddit

I was born in 1968 and never had to diagram a sentence. I feel like I missed out.

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Apawling_Behavior@reddit

this one time, I was at a square dance. Do-si-do’d my way off the dance floor and unfortunately fell into some quicksand. Now we all know that’s usually fatal. But not if you know how to diagram a sentence. Saved my a_s more than once!

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Extreme-King@reddit

Sadly yes. For a "professional" that honestly couldn't write in a communications profession.

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jeffster1970@reddit

I don't recall doing this. Perhaps we did and I got PTSD from it.

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stefaniki@reddit

Uuuuggggghhhhh... This was pushed to the depths of my brain collecting cobwebs until now!

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turnbullac@reddit

Useful skill again for translating AI slop into understandable language

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RedBaronSportsCards@reddit

Not just AI slop but sooo many reddit comments as well

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Mouse-Direct@reddit

Yes, I majored in English in college, and I taught my son to in the 2020s.

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DeaddyRuxpin@reddit

I was taught it in grade school, never understood it, and never had to do it again after grade school.

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Significant-Dance-43@reddit

Yes, this evening about 45 minutes ago as I helped my 8th grader with diagramming infinitives.

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FzzyCatz@reddit

Never!!! I can’t recall my kids having to learn it.

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Independent-Dark-955@reddit

Only in my head. I draft letters for academic administrators every working day.

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Braincloud@reddit

I haven’t diagramed a sentence in about 40 years lol 🥴 But I’ll tell you, it did help knowing how to do it when my kids were going through school lol.

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TheRealJim57@reddit

In college.

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SignificantTransient@reddit

Bro I couldn't tell you what a preposition is to save my damn life. I hated english, but at least I can type well enough to avoid being made fun of on the internet.

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forgetful_waterfowl@reddit

I fucking hated that. But the benefit of age and wisdom has led me to believe that that was actually, a critical thinking exercise used to make you examine problems logically. But I might be on the spectrum, and I also might be a little bit high.

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LonesomeBulldog@reddit

Weirdly, I always liked diagramming sentences. They no longer teach it at our schools.

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Excellent_Valuable92@reddit

They don’t? That shouldn’t surprise me, but it still pisses me off

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Legitimate-Habit-563@reddit

I enjoyed it too. I guess we’re nerds. 🤷🏽‍♀️

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OtterMumzy@reddit

I loved it!

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Pristine_Main_1224@reddit

May I join the Nerd Club? I occasionally will diagram sentences in my mind for fun.

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Legitimate-Habit-563@reddit

Absolutely! We are lit!!

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LastCookie3448@reddit

Not exactly, but I did some research courses and one was strictly how to write a research question, and I include sentence structure in my feedback to students (undergrad) b/c my students need to learn proper documentation skills.

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johnonymous1973@reddit

Yes, but I had to do it in the context of a musicolinguistics course where we used tree structures to illustrate tonal syntax.

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Ravenloff@reddit

No, but I write better because I did in middle-school.

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OtterMumzy@reddit

No but I would love a whole activity book of them!

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KitchenNazi@reddit

No, but my grammar, punctuation, and spelling is fantastic. Definitely annoying when I see posts where people get the nominative/objective cases wrong and use I/me incorrectly. Ugh!

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asscheese2000@reddit

Being proficient at diagramming sentences in grade school has benefited the quality of my writing such that young people online regularly accuse me of posting AI copy pasta.

Now diagram the above sentence! I’m pretty sure it’s grammatically correct even though it has no punctuation aside from the period at the end.

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RoastSucklingPotato@reddit

Diagramming sentences helped immensely when I was learning foreign languages. Now I’m a technical writer wishing any of the younger folks on my team had ever diagrammed sentences so I don’t have to explain what an adverb is.

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timothypjr@reddit

Well, no. I learned how to write without doing it. Same way I don't use training wheels on my bike anymore. I don't think it's supposed to be something you do after you understand sentence structure.

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Twinkle406@reddit

I have an English degree, so I diagrammed sentences in one of my college courses. I chose to teach my middle school students to diagram because it is a good way to learn how the parts of a sentence work together.

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pierrego@reddit

I tried to do it yesterday as a matter of fact.

“Here’s why what you wrote makes no sense”

I got far enough, but it was a struggle.

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AcademicIdea9169@reddit

No, but I know the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

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Grimholtt@reddit

gif

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Grimholtt@reddit

Sort of? I went into the Air Force and became an Air Crew Russian linguist back in the early 90's. We had to do it in cyrillic which added another layer of complexity.

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Wacko_Banana_Pants@reddit

After seeing some of the posts on reddit I'd say more people need to learn it again. Me included

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cometshoney@reddit

Absolutely. I had to teach my kids how to diagram sentences.

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Zealousideal-Panda23@reddit

I was pretty disillusioned when I graduated and there weren't any Sentence Diagramming Factories to apply all that I had learned.

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The_Man_in_Black_19@reddit

Damn offshoring!

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Ivotedforher@reddit

I used to ask the teacher if diagramming sentences is what adults did at adult parties.

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The_Man_in_Black_19@reddit

Now that sounds like a good time!!!

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JJQuantum@reddit

No but it wasn’t a waste of time. The point was to understand how things are said and language in general, something that oh so many adults simply don’t know, like our current president for example.

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lowfreq33@reddit

You mean like pronouns and the fact that we use them all the time?

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Kaa_The_Snake@reddit

Yes. I’m learning a second language and it helps to know what’s a verb, adjective, subject, etc.

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OrangeMustangGal@reddit

Yes, but only because I was a teacher.

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raimyraimy@reddit

Funny thing is that I literally said "I will never use this sentence diagramming stuff ever" but the joke was on me because I eventually got a PhD in linguistics and it is now kind of part of my job. Mrs. Apa, rest her soul, was right all along...

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i-am-jjm@reddit

Yes, just the other day. I’m a professional sentence diagram-er. F’ no! Just more worthless bs.

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jeffnorris@reddit

I haven't had to since 87 or 88 in school

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doglady1342@reddit

I never learned it to diagram a sentence. When I was in junior high school in the Chicago suburbs, most students had a two English classes each day. One was a language class (grammar, punctuation, sentence structure) and one was literature or writing or something. If you were in AP classes, rather than sending you to the language class, you could choose to study a foreign language. I took German.

So, we moved right before my freshman year of high school to a small town. Towards the beginning of the year, in my AP English class, one of the things we were tested on was diagramming a sentence. Of course, I failed at the test miserably because I had never seen sentence diagramming before. My teacher took me aside to discuss this and was very surprised that I had never diagrammed a sentence. I guess she thought it was unnecessary because she threw that grade out.

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hippiechick725@reddit

Nope.

Always have a calculator in my pocket too.

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smokywater50@reddit

All the time 😝 Never not once unless maybe to show off or help some kiddo

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GroundbreakingRip970@reddit

I wish I could find a job (besides teaching 8th grade English) where they would pay me to diagram sentences. I, nerd, thought it was awesome!

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Mike_Honcho_Summer@reddit

I'd let someone pay me to it too. I'm not even an 8th grade English teacher, I'm a ninja assassin and retired space shuttle door gunner.

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Ray_The_Engineer@reddit

Honestly, I remember enjoying the process of breaking down sentences. I think the intent was to teach good sentence structure. It seems like an awful lot of people around me can't speak or write well to save their life.

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dustin91@reddit

Not once, but I actually loved that exercise.

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TifCreatesAgain@reddit

Nope!

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NYTVADDICT@reddit

I never had to diagram a sentence in school, don’t think I missed anything.

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No-Fox2087@reddit

Literally only when teaching how to diagram a sentence.

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FrankParkerNSA@reddit

Yes. While I took HS German I sucked at it. Got just good enough grades that it qualified for my college engineering degree. I was about 25 when I was part of a company that acquired a large German company and they sent about a dozen of us to German classes. The instructor made us "relearn English" first as the parts of speech are super critical in reading and speaking German. Learned way more in 24 evening classes than 2 years of HS German.

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SunriseSwede@reddit

Why, yes. Just yesterday, Mr. Slate came down from his rock quarry meeting asking me to diagram several sentences he was struggling with. I hopped on my typewriter to quickly straighten things out, but Wilma the new girl had already sorted it on the blackboard. That show-off! My knickers got into a TERRIBLE bunch.

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automator3000@reddit

Yes. I was a copy editor, managing editor, editor in chief of newspapers in my 20s. If I couldn’t diagram a sentence I wouldn’t have lasted a day in my chosen industry.

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gabrielroth@reddit

This is like saying “professional pianists never play scales so practicing scales is a waste of time.” Learning how grammar works makes you a better reader and writer even if you don’t actually make the diagrams anymore. It’s an educational exercise, not an end in itself.

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finny_d420@reddit

Yes. Except it's a mental exercise. How did you compose your question without mentally doing a comprehension check? Did you use a noun? Was an adverb correctly applied?

We might not underline a word or remember what a dangling particle is but doing those breakdowns in class trained your brain to automatically use it in everyday applications.

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oscar-the-bud@reddit

I still don’t know what an adverb is and I still don’t care.

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ST0IC_@reddit

I haven't diagrammed a sentence since learning about it in 8th grade.

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Azipcoder@reddit

Why do folks pick on this? It’s like asking someone if they still use training wheels and getting indignant about it when they say no.

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Patient-Chocolate531@reddit

Agree. You don’t learn to diagram sentences so you can diagram sentences in your practical life. It’s so that you can learn to understand grammatical relationships. I absolutely use the knowledge from that in my job in editing.

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Gloomy-Athlete701@reddit

Yes, early in my career as an English teacher I was working with station have them diagram sentences 😆

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RCA2CE@reddit

I missed that class because I don't know what that means.

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EnjoyingTheRide-0606@reddit

Not since 7th grade. We had to do this aloud to the class. It was mortifying as a pubescent 12-year old.

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CT_Reddit73@reddit

Nope. BUT… the object of diagramming was to learn correct grammar and sentence structure. As someone who has a lot of people reporting to him — I’m constantly appalled (though not surprised) at the poor grammar in organizational emails and documents.

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PigInZen67@reddit

Right? How many people do I see on the regular who use objective pronouns as subjects and vice-versa?

It's annoying. It's so basic.

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ZEBRACOD@reddit

I thought my teacher was making it up as he went ….

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CaptMerrillStubing@reddit

You don't understand the point of it? The point of exposing kids to a wide variety of experiences ?

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VonGrippyGreen@reddit

There are so many things I haven't had to do. Sine, cosine, tangent... conics fx=1/fuckoffityville, translate Shakespeare, count the wives of Henry VIII? Cursive handwriting?

How about spending an extra 20 minutes on compound interest and how it relates to mortgages and savings?

Thank fuck I know that the square root of 900 is 30.

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Dauvis@reddit

Does Parsing a computer language count?

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deadzol@reddit

Nope. :)

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Capable_Stranger9885@reddit

Arguing over the precise meaning of a software requirement with the vendor, yes, once.

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Dauvis@reddit

I would like to have been a fly on the wall with that

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LonelyMachines@reddit

Yes, but it was in Latin.

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Secret_Computer4891@reddit

No, but I rely on those principles of sentence structure when I'm helping someone who is learning English.

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Second_City_Saint@reddit

What grade would we have been doing this in? I did it obviously, just don't remember when.

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Winter-eyed@reddit

Grade 3 and 4 it was big and if you took any foreign languages there too.

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Second_City_Saint@reddit

Thanks. My son is in 3rd right now. They highlight different parts of sentences but nothing like we used to. At least yet.

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Winter-eyed@reddit

Helping with homework, yeah

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aluke000@reddit

I think the whole point behind education is to equip kids with these basic tenants of knowledge, to give them an opportunity to excel towards a vast number of careers that would otherwise be completely unreachable for them. Many complain about having to take math classes for example, but some of those who go on to careers that involve it. The next generation of rocket scientists have to come from somewhere.

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IMTrick@reddit

I'd have no idea how to diagram a sentence, and I was an English major. It's just not something I ever had to do.

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LiquidSoCrates@reddit

I never did any sort of schoolwork during my school years.

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Doorknob6941@reddit

I went to Catholic school and can still diagram sentences like a madman. I have yet to draw a rhombus since sophomore year, though.

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RaulDuke_76@reddit

No, I’ve been way too busy solving all the quadratic equations I encounter on a day to day basis.

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jaxbravesfan@reddit

Yes. We had to diagram sentences in the Advanced Grammar and Rhetoric class I took in college as part of my degree program.

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retiredcorpminion@reddit

Mentally, yes. It comes in handy. I’d rather diagram sentences than do algebra any day.

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Stillmaineiac88@reddit

No, but I know how, even though it’s never been asked of me in the 42 years since graduation.

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whistlepig4life@reddit

Yes. I am a marketing associate and I write content. Sentence structure is important. Grammar is important.

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flinderson6325@reddit

Yes. I’m an attorney and just had to yesterday to help make an argument about a statute’s clear language and statutory intent.

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Full_Mission7183@reddit

I also haven’t recited the Pledge of Allegiance since school.

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blueblocker2000@reddit

Nothing to write home about, but I did well in English classes. Sentence diagraming is something that escaped my understanding. Never understood the point and so being stubborn, it never clicked with me. Thankfully, we didn't spend much time doing it.

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Naive_Product_5916@reddit

It probably would’ve made a lot more sense to me if they had actually taught me what an article was or an adjective it just made no sense to my tiny brain. I probably could do it today since I eventually became an English teacher.

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ConsuelaShlepkiss@reddit

I was an English major in college and had to diagram sentences in Linguistics II. I can't say any of it really stuck with me.

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RepresentativeAir735@reddit

Have I HAD to diagram sentences? No.

Have I occasionally diagrammed a sentence in something I'm writing to make sure it makes sense and all the parts go together correctly? Absolutely. Why would I not use the basic tools I learned in school to improve my everyday work product?

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SomePeopleCallMeJJ@reddit

The point of diagramming a sentence wasn't to create the sentence diagram. It was to develop the sentence-parsing skill required to create the diagram in the first place.

It was an exercise in looking at a sentence and understanding where all the parts were and what they were doing. To prove you could recognize which words and clauses were modifying other words, etc. It gave you the tools to help you figure out whether or not the sentences you were writing were valid and understandable (not a run-on, no dangling participles, and that sort of thing).

I mean, I haven't had to write out a times table lately either, but that fact that I was made to do so in elementary school is why I can multiply today.

So no, I don't think it was a waste of time.

Full disclosure though: I actually really liked diagramming sentences! :-)

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Baebarri@reddit

No but a few times when reading I've come across sentences that I had to pick apart and identify which words were being used as which parts of sentences before I could understand them.

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GooseberryPotato@reddit

Could be worse… I’m currently enrolled in university to finish a degree started many many moons ago. Remember when you used to think/say you’ll never use algebra in real life? Guess what class I’m taking and knowing I’ve never used it in real life… You, quadratic equation, I’m looking at you 👀

The good news is that I’m finding my minimal effort equal to top grades! Thank you former teachers.

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Outstanding_Neon@reddit

Somehow missed diagramming sentences, somehow became a skilled communicator anyway.

But I do think it's weird to believe that every single task we learned in school should somehow be a task we keep using as adults. One thing we were learning was how to learn. That's been invaluable.

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And what makes it worse, is they don’t care to learn how to correct it.

They also have no idea how to spell words because they never read them and saw them. Typically they are unaware that a word is incorrect.

To answer your question, yes, I have. I have become the de facto tutor to my little niece.

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OldLifeguard-00@reddit

I don’t remember doing this IN HS