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I'd say that rote memorization and rhythm are not enough. The problem I've run across again and again teaching both children and adults is concrete versus abstract thinking. This problem is exacerbated by current pedagogical practices: the teaching of pragamtic skills rather than rhetorical and grammatrical ones. (People don't take a class in Web standards and history, but they do take classes in FrontPage 2002 or Photoshop 7.) It's not enough to make kids memorize poetry. You have to make them study it, analyze it, write it, and enjoy it.
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I'd say that rote memorization and rhythm are not enough.How true, jheem, but, in my opinion, "analyzing" great literature is something one does, or should do, after, not before, experiencing it. Analysis is an impediment to visceral enjoyment as much with literature as with music or with the visual arts, at least on first exposure. That is the fatal flaw in how literature is "taught" to students, I suspect; that and the fact that many english teachers are mindless of the 'music' in great literature. In my school days, Shakespeare was taught by a humorless, 'army barracks' spinster who dissected it line by line, robbing it of all its poetry. In retrospect, I have often wondered if she even knew that Shakespeare was, above all else, a poet -- "the immortal bard". She required everyone to memorize lengthy passages from Macbeth and some complete sonnets for periodic written tests, but she never explained that there was any reason to do this except for the pure torture of it. She compounded the torture by awarding marks for absolutely precise punctuation, for instance, you lost a mark for using a semi-colon instead of a colon, a colon instead of a hyphen, and so on. It was really memory work for the sake of memory work, not memory work as a portal to the genius of the playwright and the transcendent power and beauty of the english language, transcendent power and beauty which reaches its zenith in the sometimes delicate, sometimes jubilant, sometimes volcanic brushstrokes of "the immortal bard". I can remember one student, overall the best in the class [we called him "The Machine"], who was totally perplexed by this passage in Macbeth spoken by Macbeth as he contemplates the murder of Duncan: "Whilst I threat, he lives. Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives". I told "The Machine" not to analyze it, but to step back from it, to let it flow over him; in short, to feel it. He honestly didn't understand it was poetry. Then he got it. And he loved it. 
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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I lucked out with an English teacher, Mrs. Sam, who not only taught us to take a poem apart to see how it worked, but would then put it back together to show us why we bothered.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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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.
There's a couple in there that aren't prepositions, specifically, but, concerning, and considering.
There are two schools of thought on punctuation, which we can call grammatical and rhetorical. The rhetorical uses commas to indicate pauses in speech and the grammatical uses them to say things about the relationship of words to each other in a sentence. A classic example of the difference might be seen in the phrase my wife Mary and I. The rhetorical punctuator would leave that phrase unsullied by any commas, but the grammatical punctuator would sneer at the suggestion that the speaker had another wife lurking in the wings somewhere, preferring to punctuate it my wife, Mary, and I.
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journeyman
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journeyman
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Ours was like a poem:
in, over, under, on, across, against, around,
beneath, beside, between, below,
above, for, by, beyond,
down, up, before, within,
from, to, after, near,
during, toward, among
There was a particular 'meter' to it, which made it stick in my head these many years.
We also had one for the forms of the verb 'to be'. Later.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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the 'grammar's song i remember, (to the tune of Yankee doodle went to town) is for copulative verb--
Be, seen, become, appear,
Look, taste, grow, sound, remain, smell
Copulative verbs take nomnative,
Predicate noun or adjective! (case is implied)
it helped get me through the NY State English regents!
garrison keeler used to have 'the Department of folk songs] as a segment on his show, and it featured many ditties like the one above that helped thousand of school kids learn some of the finer points of grammar.
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There are two schools of thought on punctuationIt seems to me that one school would be enough, Faldage.
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to:
There's a couple in there that aren't prepositions, specifically, but, concerning, and considering.
Faldage, your information is incomplete. True, the words but, concerning, considering do function in some sentences differently from prepositions. In numerous grammar books and dictionaries, however, but, concerning, and considering are shown as prepositions in function. It completely depends upon how the words are used in specific sentences. Check MW and you'll see.
I understand where you're coming from in that 'consider' is a verb and 'considering' is the present participle form. However, for whatever reasons of time and agreement that cause these changes in how words are categorized, the function of 'considering' in a preposition-like role in a sentence has occurred often enough that it can be parsed as a preposition. The same goes for 'concerning.' I can't say I'm happy with verbs morphing into prepositions, but apparently this categorization is not very recent. In my MW (Riverside, 1987), both participles have been so categorized. Function is all here.
'But' is easier to explain. It simply means the same as the preposition 'except' as in the sentence "Everyone but Charlie passed the test." I think the case of participles morphing into prepositions is a very interesting one. Apparently, from what I've read in my grandfather's 19th century Webster's, even 'but' itself (the preposition) was at one time a participle from some Saxon word. I would copy out the entire word history of the preposition 'but,' but it's simply too long. What is interesting is in the 19th century, before 'but' was categorized as a preposition--and I'm not speaking of the conjunction 'but' in any way--'but' was categorized as a participle! That's somehow delightful. I don't know when Webster's stopped categorizing what is now our preposition 'but' as a participle and began to name it, instead, as a preposition.
The abbreviated list of prepositions I copied out in the thread starter, by the way, comes from one of the grammar books that is used in Chesterfield County.
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The abbreviated list of prepositions I copied out in the thread starter, by the way, comes from one of the grammar books that is used in Chesterfield County.I am truly awed by your erudition, Wordwind, but if I was a student in Chesterfield County I'd be quaking in my boots at the prospect of writing proper english. If Shakespeare had been exposed to the Chesterfield County catechism, or most any modern grammar school catechism, I daresay english literature would have been the poorer for it. No doubt his genius would have taken flight, but it would have taken flight on clipped wings. My guess is that he was certain enough of his powers that the damage would have been minimal. Modern day grammar school lessons are less of a shackle for the gifted than for ordinary students, I suspect. How many students who might have discovered enjoyment in writing have become casualties of this catechism, I wonder? It is said that no-one writes anymore, at least with any respect for the english language. I am sure there are many reasons for this. Could this be one of them? Kids today are too smart to waste their time learning something which is not only painful but pointless. Proficiency in the catechism qualifies a person to teach it and that's about it. No-one would deny that a soupcon of it is useful, even necessary, but in large polysyllabic doses, it is almost certainly grammarcidal to elementary and high school kids. I mean no disrespect to you personally, Wordwind. My comments are directed at the educational system which promulgates stuff like "introductory prepositional phrases" for children under the age of consent.
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re My comments are directed at the educational system which promulgates stuff like "introductory prepositional phrases" for children under the age of consent.This could be the basis for a class action lawsuit. For once, no pun is intended. [Hence, no smiley is appended. ]
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