In its heyday, sentence diagramming was wildly popular ingrammar schools across the country. Kitty Burns Florey learned themethod in sixth grade from Sister Bernadette: "It was a bit likeart, a bit like mathematics. It was a picture of language. I washooked." Now, in this offbeat history, Florey explores thesentence-diagramming phenomenon, including its humble roots at theBrooklyn Polytechnic, its "balloon diagram" predecessor, and whatdiagrams of famous writers' sentences reveal about them. Along theway Florey offers up her own commonsense approach to learning andusing good grammar. Charming, fun, and instructive, SisterBernadette's Barking Dog will be treasured by all kinds of readers,from grumpy grammarians and crossword-puzzle aficionados tostudents of literature and lovers of language.
