[dwhitney]

I learned how to diagram sentences in college. It was eye-opening, and I wish I had learned it sooner.

[gertlex]

I remember diagramming being covered once, maybe 5th grade, and not sure it was addressed again.

I seem to have ended up with a very strong "sense" for correct english (though I know some parts where I'm weak; and also my online "post a comment" style stuff ends up full of shorthands...). I presume that my "being good at catching grammatical weirdness" comes from several schoolyears learning German, and being a voracious bookworm as a kid.

Curious if that sort of situation is also the case for others who weren't heavily taught diagramming but still feel they ended up being really good at correct written English.

[082349872349872]

Defo. I had always had a good implicit knowledge of grammar in my L1, due to early and extensive reading, so synthesising "correct" utterances was never an issue. However, it wasn't until I started learning an L2, and had to explicitly revisit even simple structures, that the light went on and from then on I was able to easily analyse my L1 as well.

[bluSCALE4]

I plan on going through the book with my soon to be 4th grade son. Hopefully it's a good book.