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

[arusticat]

Oh, I think parsing speech is a worthwhile endeavor. I got interested in it over the past 8 years. When Bush, in the 2002 or 2003 State of The Union, said that we KNOW that Saddam Hussein PROBABLY has a nuclear program, I knew that it was important to start paying attention.

I recommend Mark Crispin-Miller's "The Bush Dyslexicon" for a heads up on the use of speech to confuse the listener. I hope we don't have that with Obama but we all need tutoring on critical listening. Only Jon Stewart seems to have an interest in this issue right now.

[madman 01]

even worse, he doesn't use the word nuclear, he says, nuculer!

[spartanmom]

you just made me cringe

[lvdragonlady]

We all would have loved to have seen this done on shrubies sentences.

[omo]

Can you even imagine diagramming one of Miss Sarah's 'sentences' ?

[sonomarc]

Linguistics - the mother lode of understanding.

[spartanmom]

I happen to love sentence diagrams. I've studied traditional (like this) and transformational grammar (which is more sophisticated and hence more appropriate to Obama's speech) and I always want ideas clumped in threes.

So you see I am totally in the tank for Obama's use of English.

I would however, like to point out that "I am more interested in looking forward than I am in looking back." is separate sentence unto itself and therefore is a separate idea. Yes it does throw some insight backwards over the preceding sentence but it doesn't nullify the previous idea at all.

[JJThinking]

Wow, I haven't done sentence diagrams since middle school.

Interesting analysis, though.

[TJCole]

Oh God I just had a flashback to Catholic School...Sister Loretta Anna..!

[MadeinAmericaProud]

you too.

The boarding school with nuns who did not have any idea how to cook. We had burned breakfast and sentence diagrams in the morning.

This guy is being paid to write about this. There are several age groups with about 78% of these Americans in each group cannot read or write.

They are happy to hear bush speak.

[TJCole]

LOL...man that's the truth..!

[spartanmom]

Lotta people thinking about nuns on the thread

[logic63]

Funny stuff-I appreciate your take on things

[katielady]

very good.. I agree...

[berryessence]

i bet my English teacher Ms. Chapman is gleaming from ear to ear!

I hated those damn things in English class

[phredralf]

Nice work!

[Carolab]

Which simply means that he is considering all the "factors" at play when he speaks--much like any attorney or anyone who is careful about pinning themselves down when there are "gray areas" or something further that may need to be disclosed to shift one's view.

[luisroman]

Really? Sentence diagramming? Really? Are these the depths we're sinking to now? Honestly, if this is where we're headed, people need to start thinking of better things to do with their time. Obama is an extraordinary writer and public speaker - we all understand that by now. This brand of hero worship only threatens to raise people's expectations beyond any sense of proportion. Just let the man do his job, and judge him based on his accomplishments, not his sentence structure

[KayWrites]

Hmmmm. If we had all judged Bushie's sentence structure a little more, perhaps we could have predicted the outcomes of his "accomplishments."

[BearsLeft]

Hey Jason, why don't you have Hallberg diagram some of your brilliant moments from last summer's Vlogahhrea sessions?

[huffnpuff147]

I guess this is what it's like when a bloger "jumps the shark."

[Ldyandrea]

This is really great stuff!

Btw, Jason I caught you on the POTUS channel of Sirius Radio the other day! Great to hear you out there!

[vote-obama]

in the now infamous words of disgraced governor blago " is this a joke"