Brava! Excellent diagram! Classical educator here, LOVE diagrams. And the same sort of parsing can be done to periods and phrases and motives, and can help some of us memorize and/or internalize pieces. Plus there's always the fun of one of one's scholistas saying, 'there's that tone IV lick again' (they got tired of me saying 'motive' and a couple of us like early jazz, so...)

Love this! Do you have a diagramming program?

Brava, brava, brava!
(I hate to be picky, but you left out 'on high' and 'around', and have donated 'for ever'.)

Very pretty - but what is this stuff?
Genuine question...I mean I can see you are splitting out parts of sentences...enlightenment please!

I'm a post 1965 kid, but had to learn this to homeschool my own children if they were to pass grammar, which I never properly learned. I am thoroughly impressed with Julie's skill level here.

Here's a little help: http://www.english-grammar-revolution.com/puzzler_answers.html

Totally cool :-)

Just for fun and in honor of tomorrow's Introit and next week's Communion antiphon which are for me among the most thrilling of the EF propers.

This is coolest thread ever. I teach diagramming to my kids (and learned it myself in Catholic school some years ago). I also happen to know that genuinely Montessori-trained elementary school children learn to diagram. Maybe all hope is not lost.

As for this:

This, by the way, was written for children, children who we may guess, based upon what they were given to sing and read, were rather brighter, more mature, and more literate than their modern kindred. (Their teachers, too!)

Yes indeed, though I'd suggest that children aren't any less potentially bright today; they simply are not asked to be bright. It goes both ways. When you give children complex passages to read, they become more literate, and as they become more literate, they become more able to read complex passages.

...above their ability...

The one whose ability it was above was the teacher! And it always is.
That goes, too, for choirmasters & priests who tell us that their people can't learn 'that'.

I still don't really understand what you are doing there, but its is intriguing and lovely.

Okay Julie, teach us how it works.
Some of us want to be reminded and relearn.
Help me be smarter than a ___-grader!

It does take you back a bit to middle school and high school! Remember old Warriner's Grammar? I had to do diagramming so much in school that it's just automatic now, and it really helps with Latin. I use these diagrams with my children's schola, and it helps them get a sense of things. Here are the basic rules:

The horizontal lines are clauses in the order of Subject/Verb/Direct Object, or Subject/Verb/Predicate Complement.

Horizontal lines contain the most important words: nouns, pronouns, verbs or predicate complements.

The diagonal lines are the ancillary words: prepositions and their objects, adjectives or adverbs. Participles are on curved lines.

The vertical line intersecting with the long horizontal line divides the subject from the predicate. The straight line after the verb indicates a direct object. A slanted line after the verb indicates a predicate complement.

Dotted lines indicate subordinate clauses or another main clause linked by coordinating or subordinate conjunctions.

Here's a really fun one: an understood subject Vos=You all with a compound predicate made up of three verb phrases:



Estote fortes in bello
et pugnate cum antiquo serpento
et accipietis regnum aeternum,
alleluia.

Some of us (homeschoolers, for example) still use it!

Unless you mean "taught to be a dad by your children", no, I'm not being homeschooled.

For today's feast, the Dedication of the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, the Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, our "Mother Church", Sacrosancta Lateranensis ecclesia omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput ( "Most Holy Lateran Church, of all the churches in the City and the world, the mother and head.")



Amazing virtual tour of St. John Lateran here.