Product Review
This book is a fabulous read: it is brilliant, erudite, easy-to-read, and laugh-out-loud funny. It will teach you all you never even thought to ask about diagramming sentences, but it is about far more than that. Really, it's an exploration of the evolution of the English language, the gap between those of us who MUST speak and write properly and those who say--whatever.
The book opens with Sister Bernadette writing on a blackboard with a flourish, fastening her young charges to the miracle of language by drawing them a picture, which is, after all, what diagramming is (and part of what the illustrated title does). Kitty Burns Florey has written a book about the English language that is witty, charming, educational, and impossible to put down. "Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog" should be in every high school, and first year college English classroom.
Florey's tone, throughout this delightful book, is one of spontaneous humor and warmth. She is passionate about language herself and seeing how language has evolved, with or without the help of diagramming, is a fascinating look at ourselves, our culture, and gives us a clue about what the future may hold for the written and spoken word.
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