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One of the punctuation rules my kids have to master this year is how to punctuate introductory prepositional phrases. Because so many of the kids come to me not knowing a preposition from a hole in the ground, I use a variety of strategies to help them recognize the beast.
Many teachers use the device of the airplane and the clouds:
The plane flew _______________________ the clouds.
And many prepositions comfortably fill in that blank:
The plane flew around the clouds.
....beneath the clouds.
...over the clouds.
And so on.
But nothing's perfect in English.
I'm thinking about giving my kids a group of prepositions, such as the one I show below, to try in the airplane model with the purpose of identifying the black sheep prepositions, so to speak.
For instance, out of the following set of prepositions, which would you argue do not fit the model in a way that makes a sensible English sentence?
aboard, about, above, according to, across, across from, after, against, along, alongside, alongside of, along with, amid, among, apart from, around, aside from, at, away from, back of, because of, before, behind, below, beneath, beside, besides, between, beyond, but, by, by means of, concerning, considering, despite.
Thanks for taking a quick look. (You might ask yourself, "Does this sentence make sense out of context?")
I see several that work lamely at best, and, in an essay, would cause a lot of confusion.
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Concerning? Never! The rest are fine.
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The rest aren't fine:
The plane flew but the clouds.
The plane flew besides the clouds.
The plane flew considering the clouds.
...and there might be another in addition to the one you identified above that I repeat below, Milo, but I haven't carefully analyzed the list yet:
The plane flew concerning the clouds.
Edit: "According to the road map, our route was wrong-minded." Now, given the use of "according to" in that sentence, could we make a leap and say the sentence, "The plane flew according to the clouds." I don't think so. It seems lame to me.
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The plane flew; (ah) but the clouds. The plane flew besides the clouds. (colloquialism) (amazing) The plane flew - considering the clouds. But don't cha know, concerning joins the plane and the clouds but indicates no relationship. Wordwind, have you become prim and proper? 
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my kids have to master how to punctuate introductory prepositional phrasesInstead of teaching your kids how to punctuate "introductory prepositional phrases", just tell them to punctuate "introductory phrases". Problem solved. You don't have to be a mechanic to drive a vehicle. Learn to drive first, then get your hands greasy under the hood if it suits you. It doesn't suit everyone. Just the suits at the Board of Education.
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You don't have to be a mechanic to drive a vehicle.With all due respect, Wordwind, it seems to me that there should be a class called "Common Sense Writing" which students have to take before they are introduced to the "rules" of punctuation and a whole lot of other "rules". "Common Sense Writing" would teach students that the purpose of "rules" is not to frustrate and confuse them (as most students naturally assume), but to make it easier for the reader to understand what they are writing. The first thing a teacher of "Common Sense Writing" would do is put an unpunctuated sentence or sentences on the blackboard which would benefit from the addition of punctuation. Then that teacher would allow the students to discover for themselves, by speaking the sentence aloud, how that sentence becomes clearer and more understandable and more emphatic by inserting 'breaks', or 'pauses' or 'little breaths' in the sentence -- which eggheads call "punctuation". Once the students get into the rhythm of it, tell them that there isn't anything else to master. All this "introductory prepositional phrase" hogwash is just the mechanical stuff under the hood of the car. Who needs it if you just want to learn how to become a good driver? Then students should be told that mechanics don't necessarily make better drivers than people who don't know a carburetor from a tailpipe. In fact, there is a danger that a mechanic will pay too much attention to what is going on under the hood and not enough attention to what is going on in the road ahead. Contrary to the impression which the "rulebooks" give, the rules serve good writing, not the other way around. Good writing is clear, understandable writing - in other words, "Common Sense Writing".
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I wanted to say that Common Sense Writing is a Paine, but I decided to desist. Yeah, right.
All seriousness aside, Plutarch, I like your approach immensely. Have you ever thought of teaching?
TEd
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All seriousness aside, Plutarch, I like your approach immenselyNow, there is an evasive encomium if every I saw one, TEd Rem. But I'll bite anyway. Since what I am advocating is "common sense", I can't take uncommon credit for advocating it, and it might be awkward for you to belittle me for exercising it. I happen to think that the education system has long since forgotten, if it ever knew, what the object is of grammar and english literature studies. Rhythm is the key to the power and the beauty of our language. But who teaches rhythm in conjunction with grammar and english literature at any level in our public school system? Kids get rhythm. Sometimes they get it better than their english teachers. Perhaps most times. If english teachers treated an unpunctuated sentence like a line of music, it wouldn't be long before the students were teaching the lesson. They'd be rockin' around the classroom clock. I Googled "educator Paine" and came up with Thomas Paine who "wrote the pamphlet Common Sense in 1776". Good one, TEd Rem. I haven't thought of becoming a teacher, TEd Rem, but if I wrote a book on Grammar, I would call it "Rockin' Around the Classroom Clock". Or, simply, Grammar Rocks.
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re: Rhythm is the key to the power and the beauty of our language. But who teaches rhythm in conjunction with grammar and english literature at any level in our public school system?
yes, i am old, and its less true today, but i learned (and had a poetry text book!) from 2nd grade onward.
i was required to learn recertation (there is a word that never really made it into my writen vocabulary--by the time i should have learned it, the idea was passe!) pieces.. every one in school did..
we had to memorize a poem, and stand up in front of the class and recite it. any poem.
one of the few childhood books in my house was Robert Lewis Stevenson's 'A Childrens Garden of Verses' i learned (and can still recite) "I have a little shadow"
by the time my kids were in school, there were no poetry books, and almost no poetry. So i bought these books for my kids. several of them survived my moving 3 times! (i still have them!)
My kids didn't have to memorize Edward Lears "the owl and the the pussy cat" or "the gingham dog and the calico cat" or any of the other poems, but they did grow up hearing them. and christina rossetti's poems, and other favorites from my childhood.
Parents have a responsiblity, too. Dr suess is and remains beloved because of this use of rhythm and rhymes.
i think the popularity of rap is because there was a void in rhythmic speach.. rap helps fill it. (goodness knows, now days to experess and interest in poetry is to be called a total nerd.. (see nerd thread in AWAD in Schools for what that means)
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This reminds me of that movie with Jon Voigt (a much younger Jon Voigt), based on the book "The Water Is Wide"...darn it, what was the movie title?? The one where he went to teach on that island off South Carolina and found the kids ignorant of virtually everything--and one of the ways he got them to learn was by using rhythm--he'd chant a line, then have the kids repeat it.
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