What Sentence Diagrams Reveal About President Obama

Something that most people - even his political opponents - agree on is that President Barack Obama is a fairly gifted orator. On those occasions when he speaks extemporaneously, he still struggles with vocalized pauses - those lengthy "Uhhmmms" and "Errrrrs" - but in general, he can compose articulate sentences and typically does fine work with a prepared speech.

But is GRAMMAR, itself, in the tank for Obama? Apparently so, and all it takes to reveal this truth is a trip back to the most hated part of your middle school education: sentence diagramming. Below, blogger Garth Risk Hallberg diagrammed a sentence from Obama's recent press conference - coincidentally, his response to the question put to him by our own Sam Stein:

My view is also that nobody's above the law, and, if there are clear instances of wrongdoing, that people should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen, but that, generally speaking, I'm more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards.

Hallberg says that the visual alone "offers several insights":

First, the elegant balance of the central construction (My view is that x, and that y, but also that z) shows that Obama has a good memory for where he's been, grammatically, and a strong sense of where he's going. His tripartite analysis of the problem is clearly reflected in the structure of the sentence, and thus in the three main branches of the diagram. (Turn it on its side and it could be a mobile.) The third "that" - thrown in 29 words into a 43-word sentence - creates three parallel predicate nouns. And then there's a little parallel flourish at the end: "I am more interested in looking forward than I am in looking back."

By contrast, the diagrams of typical George W. Bush sentences are indistinguishable from Google Earth closeups of small rodents, drowned in mud puddles. But watch out, Obamaphiles! Obama's grammatical structure reveals terrible, dark secrets as well! For starters, he uses "copulative predicates" - literally some sort of terrible word-sodomy! But even worse is this:

Notice the canny way that the sentence above turns on the fulcrum of what may be Obama's favorite word: "but." What appears to be a hard line - "My view is... that nobody is above the law" - turns out to have been a qualifier for a vaguer but more inspiring motto: "I am more interested in looking forward than I am in looking back." The most controversial part of the sentence - "people should be prosecuted" - gets tucked away, almost parenthetically, in the middle.

So there you have it! Watch for Obama to continue to hide "controversy" in the middle of parenthetical clauses, where only William Ayers, with his Chicago Machine education, can find them!

Comments

[isis]

I loved sentence diagraming. I've gotten a bit dumber over the past 8 years but maybe now it will all come back to me.

[LittleRedHenSez]

Me, too! So that makes about 6 of us in the entire population. I didn't even know anyone ever did that anymore. The earth's crust hadn't entirely cooled when I was in school.

[Tulka2]

Obama's precision and elegance does not come from grim sentence parsing. Obama speaks so well because he has a beautiful ear for the English language, but i'm betting he loved sentence parsing too.

[Gould123]

"What the heck"?

[PeacefulRevolution]

If only we could be as intelligent as him. He is brilliant. I wish everyone would realize that.

[rsprags]

Jason Linkins, You are trying so hard to be an intelluctual, however, you are coming off as an A-Hole. I agree with one of the statements above: with all that happening in this country and the world what does it have to do with anything.The President is a multi-million dollar published author ; and the editor did not have any problems editing his transcript . Your assessment of his speech writing style and public speaking ability is iirrelevant. Get a life......

[dijo]

Do you understand snark?

[Tulka2]

I loved parsing sentences. Obama has already done everything i wanted him to do because he speaks English.

[yasmeen]

let me see:

palin sees a witch doctor, has children (bristol) out of wedlock who in turn have their own out of wedlock, yet represents the party of values and abstinence only, can't answer a simple katie couric question without weaving all over the place, tells lies about her opponent thus endangerraging etc. husband: highschool dropout

mccain cheats on his wife, lies, insults "that one", is too old, unhealthy, technologically challenged, etc.
wife: drug addict

barack obama is a young, nerdy, geeky harvard graduate and professor of constitutional law who is the most inspirational leader in decades and most competent in years, with a matching spouse and an amazing family and yet:

he's called elitist, pals around with terrorists, called muslim, is told to keep his jacket on while in the oval office, has every utterance analyzed, etc.

had he been like palin or mccain he wouldn't even have gotten his party's nomination and yet he is being shreded daily for the tiniest things. why? i think it's because he is black. if he were white, alot of things wouldn't have been issues.

poor baby. i love you and pray for you. you will overcome the repubs and the recession and wars and prove yourself worthy of our love, loyalty and adoration. yes, you can!

[skymuffin]

If he were white, he would have won 70% of the vote and people would be falling all over him and not criticizing everything.

Lord, please keep him and his family safe from the people that wish him harm.

[larry278]

Some of us find sodomy satisfying & sensational fun. We like bibliographic incest too. Vice is nice but incest is best. No, Ak's governor never said that. Round up the usual suspects & frame them for 1st saying all 3 things.

[BlueAsh]

I actually don't think Obama uses the word "but" cleverly to evade confronting a controversial issue. He is a complex thinker who sees many dimensions to a problem and has, from the very beginning, refused to reduce complex issues to a soundbite.

It is fortunate that people in this country, at this moment, are very receptive to complex thinkers (perhaps out of fear and anxiety). The fact is, those who are in the media, politics, or education should encourage people to learn to appreciate complexity in life and encourage people to think higher level thoughts.

Otherwise, sentence diagrams mean absolutely nothing.

[spartanmom]

OMG!

There are pseudo copulative predicates and reciprocal copulative predicates!

What is this world coming to?

Or, for you nineteenth century purists,

To what is this world coming?

[spartanmom]

Okay, this is funnier than we knew

"Common copular verbs are: be, seem, look, turn, become, appear, sound, smell, taste, feel and get."

http://www.perfectyourenglish.com/grammar/copular-verbs.htm

[Damaven]

Put that in a Garmin.

[TRYKER]

You were doing all right until you got into the "Wm Ayers and the Chicago Election Machine", then you gave yourself away.

[Ajegunle]

VERY TRUE.

[realitychecks]

Just couldn't hold back the wm.ayers,exposed your self.a crime of another sort.

[tel8034]

While using good grammar and proper sentence structure is something we all should aspire to, the fact that the current President is able to communicate in a manner understood by all, is a far cry from the nonsensical, erratic, gibberish we all had to endure for 8 years with Dubya.

[olderdem]

If only being able to diagram sentence helped solve the credit crisis . . . .

[spartanmom]

Well, I've heard that you need to be able to do it if you want to read Keynes

[Sensiblebg]

We never did this in school...

[spartanmom]

That's ok we'll let you hang out with the big kids

[SharonB]

I did. It was not one of my favorite things, believe me. In fact this whole article is causing me to have flashbacks of Ms. Ellis' 7th grade English class!

I may have to sue Jason for writing this and causing me such trauma.

Oh, the humanity.

[nightsdoor]

Just curious, were you raised in a red state? Because I was and I didn't do stuff like this until college. I feel very cheated by my underfunded, dumb-jock-friendly education.

[SharonB]

His speaking style is a change from the last 8 years. We would have appreciate some verbs in the sentences... Instead, we got "Fire BAD! Bread GOOD!" And, this was when Bush was asked about the financial situation in the nation.

[tabaqui]

No, no, no. It's 'Fire bad, tree pretty.'
.

I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself.

[VictorAbrahamsen]

Joss Whedon ftw.

[OverIt]

My biggest pet peeve about Obama's grammar --- During sentence pauses, he assumes that the next word will not be a vowel word and stops with a hard "a"... then often continues with a word that starts with a vowel.

For instance, he might say: "The main problem facing us now is a... economy in peril." It's minor but I wish he would pause BEFORE the article so he could choose the correct one when he goes on.

He actually does this AT LEAST ONCE every press conference or interview.

[spartanmom]

oh, thanks, I never noticed that but now it will drive me nuts too

[OverIt]

Oh, I'm sorry. It WILL drive you nuts. I love watching him speak but every time he does it, I spend the rest of that interview trying NOT to notice if he does it again.

[johnie2xs]

Small price to pay, considering the alternative, and the former.

[OverIt]

It's a pet peeve but also a cute quirk. I can live with it.

[SurrealPumpkin]

Is it an "a" or an "uh". I don't think that "uh" takes an "n" before a vowel. :)

[OverIt]

No, I'm mot talking about the "uh". Trust me on this... or better yet. Watch out for it. :-)

[Tulka2]

We all have our little panics. Perhaps when to use "a" and "an" has never been completely clear to him....? My peeve is that modern people don't know "lie" is the past tense of lay.