Okay, class, we will now turn to sentence diagramming.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take the example on page 15, begin reading:<\/p>\n
Look, having nuclear\u2014my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John [T] at MIT; good genes, very good genes, okay, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart\u2014you know, if you\u2019re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, okay, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world\u2014it\u2019s true!\u2014but when you’re a conservative Republican they try\u2014oh, do they do a number\u2014that\u2019s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune\u2014you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we\u2019re a little disadvantaged\u2014but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me\u2014it would have been so easy, and it\u2019s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right\u2014who would have thought?), but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners\u2014now it used to be three, now it\u2019s four\u2014but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven\u2019t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it\u2019s gonna take them about another 150 years\u2014but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
What is the subject of this sentence?\u00a0 Who can identify the predicate? <\/p>\n
For those of you who prefer using the Reed-Kellogg system, do your efforts resemble those of Ms. Ferriss<\/a>? If we apply the theory of dependency grammar would it aid in illuminating the meaning?\u00a0 Or would it be fairer to conceptualize this utterance in terms of phrase structure grammar?\u00a0 In this context, would it help to know that the sentence was delivered at a political rally?\u00a0 Would it matter if the sentence was uttered by the most powerful man in the world<\/a>?<\/p>\n
This exercise hints at the concerning state of contemporary legal discourse.\u00a0 In a recent episode of Against the Rules<\/a>, a podcast where Michael Lewis examines the endangered role of the referee in modern life, Bryan Garner appears as a remnant of bygone usage authority.\u00a0 \u201cBryan Garner has a really nice house.\u00a0 But his usage manual doesn\u2019t pay his mortgage.\u00a0 He gives writing seminars for lawyers,\u201d Lewis says, \u201cthe rest of his market has mostly vanished.\u201d (17:11) \u00a0Lewis\u2019 not-so-subtle implication is that lawyers may be the last English language users in America to even bother to appear to care about standard language conventions.\u00a0 A proposed mantra for rhetoricians<\/a>, as Garner famously put it, runs: \u201cTo the writer or speaker for whom credibility is important, it’s a good idea to avoid distracting any readers or listeners.\u201d<\/p>\n
To the extent that our laws are written, enforced, and interpreted by individuals housed in our representative government, how our politicians communicate matters.\u00a0 Their and our use of language matters.\u00a0 And yet, your level of frustration with the grammar in the \u201cnuclear sentence,\u201d may be a function of your political identification.\u00a0 With party affiliation dividing the electorate on so many issues, I have been wondering about the role of rhetoric in partisan times.\u00a0 More pointedly, is it possible to convince an audience that does not already agree with you?<\/p>\n
Thomas Aquinas is popularly attributed with coining the adage: \u201cFor those with faith, no evidence is necessary; for those without it, no evidence will suffice.\u201d\u00a0 While this is likely a paraphrasing of a more clumsy and tedious quote (Summa Theologiae <\/u><\/a> II-II, Q. 1, Art. 5, reply obj. 1), the concept is still easily discernable.\u00a0 How much difference does a persuasive display of reasoning, credibility, and emotion<\/a>\u00a0really matter if an argument is premised within a different ideological paradigm?\u00a0 Take for example the whistleblower complaint.\u00a0 Praised<\/a> by the director of the Writing Center at Harvard for its clarity, precision, use of effective topic sentences, section headings, and active voice, the content of the complaint has done little to move the needle of opinion in a consequential direction<\/a> in Congress or the greater public.<\/p>\n
Reading the rambling nuclear sentence in a more favorable light<\/a> requires us to acknowledge that it was never meant to be a sentence.\u00a0 Its punctuation is the somewhat arbitrary construct of a more critical framework.\u00a0 Our invectives are often context dependent and, like social media, increasingly curt.\u00a0 The predominance of outrage may indicate that our political language is used primarily for rallying purposes<\/a>. For the flip side of the rhetorical nuclear coin, let\u2019s end by looking at this selection of protest signs<\/a> from the 2017 Women\u2019s March, possibly the largest<\/a> single day protest in U.S. history:<\/p>\n
Really?<\/em><\/p>\n
Not usually a protester but geez <\/em><\/p>\n
This is really bad <\/em><\/p>\n
So bad even introverts are here <\/em><\/p>\n
[internally screaming] <\/em><\/p>\n
We f#cked up bigly <\/em><\/p>\n
There will be hell toupee <\/em><\/p>\n
Honestly there are too many problems with this administration to adequately summarize in one sign <\/em><\/p>\n
Literally everything about this is so awful that I have no idea where to even start <\/em><\/p>\n
Donald Trump uses Comic Sans <\/em><\/p>\n
Mike Pence likes Nickelback <\/em><\/p>\n
I\u2019ve seen sturdier cabinets at IKEA <\/em><\/p>\n
Just, ugh <\/em><\/p>\n
I wish this were fake news <\/em><\/p>\n
Trump is an offense to human dignity <\/em><\/p>\n
my Mama don\u2019t like Trump and she likes everyone <\/em><\/p>\n
I can\u2019t believe we are still protesting this <\/em><\/p>\n
this is our c<\/em>untry <\/em><\/p>\n
Sorry world, we will fix this <\/em><\/p>\n
if Britney can make it through 2007, we can make it through this <\/em><\/p>\n
Chin up, fangs out <\/em><\/p>\n
Add pumpkin spice to racism so white women will care <\/em><\/p>\n
Unite the states of America <\/em><\/p>\n
We shall overcomb! <\/em><\/p>\n
We are the resistance! <\/em><\/p>\n
free Melania! <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Okay, class, we will now turn to sentence diagramming.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take the example on page 15, begin reading: Look, having nuclear\u2014my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John [T] at MIT; good genes, very good genes, okay, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart\u2014you know, if you\u2019re 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