Say “sentence diagramming” to people of a certain age, and you get reactions ranging from, “Oh, I was really good at that in eighth grade,” to “Mrs. Green made us diagram The Rime of the ...

Once a popular way to teach grammar, the practice of diagramming sentences has fallen out of favor.

There are plenty of people out there—not only English teachers but also amateur language buffs like me—who believe that diagramming a sentence provides insight into the mind of its perpetrator ...