parsing the McCrarey-Althouse challenge

Friend John McCrarey emailed me a link to an Ann Althouse blog post in which she challenged people to diagram (that's parse for you older folks) the following sentence written by Norman Mailer, presumably in 1968 as a commentary on the Democratic Convention:

One could pass from heavy-set young men with a full chop of beard and a fifty-pound pack on their back to young adolescent poetesses, pale as Ophelia, prim as Florence Nightingale, from college boys in sweaters with hints of Hippie allegiance, to Madison Avenue types in sideburns, straw hats, and a species of pill-taking panache; through decent, mildly fanatic ranks of middle-class professionals—suggestion of vitiated blood in their complexion—to that part of theater and show biz which dependably would take up cause with the cleaner cadres of the Left.

I've pretty much forgotten the proper way to diagram a sentence, and a Google search of "sentence-parsing chart" isn't of much help, for it appears that there are/were/have been many, many ways to parse a sentence.* So what I'm going to do—given that I've forgotten the proper way to parse, and given that Google is no help as a tutor—is lead you through an analysis of the sentence from its major parts to its minor parts. It'll be a bit of a folksy narrative instead of a proper parsing, but in the end, I think you'll agree that the sentence will have been parsed. More or less.

Let's start with the biggest chunks, and let's kill the suspense by offering the simplest-possible analysis of the sentence which, as it turns out, is essentially a complex sentence, i.e., it has an independent clause and a dependent (or subordinate) clause. However, the subordinate clause is buried so deep, and is such a minor adjunct to the object of a preposition, that I'm almost tempted to say this is, in reality, a simple sentence, i.e., a sentence with only one clause. Be the sentence simple or complex, at its heart, the sentence is saying this:

One could pass from A to B, from C to D; through E—to F, which X.

I don't like the structure of Mailer's sentence very much. It would have been smoother and more elegant to have structured his thoughts this way:

One could pass from A through D to F.

The trip through Mailer's ideas would then have reflected a physical trip across, say, London or Paris or Seoul:

One could pass from Suwon through Seoul to Goyang.

But there are other ways to reword Mailer, as we'll discuss below. Alas, Mailer adds some curlicues that interrupt the flow of his own thought—the sign of a person who's trying to be self-consciously over-literary. Granted, I have little room to talk, given the often-complex structure of my own sentences, but I think my criticism of Mailer's sentence, here, stands.

Even more basically, the simple subject of Mailer's sentence is "One," and the simple predicate is the modal "could pass." Pretty much everything else is a string of prepositional phrases with some wrinkles added, and all the prepositional phrases function adverbially as modifiers of "could pass." Mailer's punctuation is inconsistent at some points, and arguably incorrect at others, as we'll see in my closer analysis below. And with that, let's begin.

Simple subject: One
Simple predicate: could pass

Prepositional phrase #1 (PP1): from heavy-set young men with a full chop of beard and a fifty-pound pack on their back
Further breakdown of PP1:
   with a full chop of beard = functions adjectivally, modifying "heavy-set young men"
   and a fifty-pound pack on their back = functions adjectivally, modifying "heavy-set young men"

[This is more a stylistic quibble than a cogent criticism, but I squirm at the usage of singular and plural in the above locution. I'd rewrite it this way: "from heavy-set young men with full chops of beard and fifty-pound packs on their backs."]

Prepositional phrase #2 (PP2): to young adolescent poetesses, pale as Ophelia, prim as Florence Nightingale,
Further breakdown of PP2:
   pale as Ophelia = simile functioning adjectivally, modifying "young adolescent poetesses"
   prim as Florence Nightingale = simile functioning adjectivally, modifying "young adolescent poetesses"

[I disagree with the omission of a comma between the coordinate adjectives "young" and "adolescent." I view Mailer as incorrect here. Coordinate adjectives require a comma.]

Prepositional phrase #3 (PP3): from college boys in sweaters with hints of Hippie allegiance,
Further breakdown of PP3:
   with hints of Hippie allegiance = prepositional phrase functioning adjectivally, modifying either "college boys" or their "sweaters"

[That comma at the end of the long prepositional phrase (which is actually two such phrases) is a major inconsistency in Mailer's prose. Note how, the first time Mailer uses a "from...to" locution, there's no comma preceding the "to." Mailer writes: "from heavy-set young men... to young adolescent poetesses"—with no comma! Naughty, naughty, Mr. Mailer!]

Prepositional phrase #4 (PP4): to Madison Avenue types in sideburns, straw hats, and a species of pill-taking panache;
Further breakdown of PP4:
   in sideburns, straw hats, and a species of pill-taking panache; = prepositional phrase functioning adjectivally, modifying "Madison Avenue types"

[We absolutely have to talk about the fucking semicolon at the end of this list. As I've discussed in my series on commas (LINK), semicolons can indeed be used as a sort of "super-comma" to separate list items that themselves contain commas. Mailer seems to be attempting this here, but this raises the question of why he didn't use a semicolon earlier in his overly florid sentence, right after "Florence Nightingale." Mailer's sentence is basically a list of prepositional phrases, some of which also contain sub-lists, as we see right here in PP4. I suspect that Mailer has no clue how to use a semicolon properly, which just about puts him in the same comma-splicing, semicolon-avoiding camp as GRR Martin and JK Rowling. Martin and Rowling splice commas because, like Mailer, they don't know how to use semicolons properly. Mailer—bless him—tried using a semicolon, but he tripped over his dick. Pardon me while I go shoot someone.]

Prepositional phrase #5 (PP5): through decent, mildly fanatic ranks of middle-class professionals—suggestion of vitiated blood in their complexion—
Further breakdown of PP5:
   —suggestion of vitiated blood in their complexion— = parenthetical phrase set off by em dashes and functioning adjectivally, modifying "middle-class professionals"

[Here, we have a parenthetical phrase acting appositively (as in: Mike—my bestest buddy—is coming over tonight.). Parentheticals can be set off by actual parentheses as well as by commas and em dashes. When an expression is set off by em dashes, the drama inherent in an em dash is supposed to be an attention-getter, a kind of prose-form dramatic pause, a stage-whispered aside directed right at the reader by the wink-nudging author.]

Prepositional phrase #6 (PP6): to that part of theater and show biz which dependably would take up cause with the cleaner cadres of the Left.
Further breakdown of PP6:
   which dependably would take up cause with the cleaner cadres of the Left. = relative clause introduced by which and functioning adjectivally, i.e., this is an adjective clause modifying "that part (of theater and show biz)"

[This brings us, at long last, to the end of the sentence: the final "to" after the initial "from." My main complaint, in this segment, is the use of which, which should be reserved for nonrestrictive clauses introduced by commas. Use that instead, or add a comma before which so as to make it obvious that the which clause is nonrestrictive.]

I could have analyzed the sentence even more minutely by going into how each prepositional phrase is introduced by a preposition that is followed by an object of the preposition, and I could have taken the adjective clause apart to show its simple subject (which) and its simple predicate (would take), but that would truly have been putting the anal in analysis.

Instead, because I've offered some complaints about Mailer's style and diction, let me finish by attempting a rewrite that—I fervently hope—will read better, more smoothly, and more clearly. As you might guess, this will involve taking a Teutonically long sentence and breaking it down into shorter, more Amurrican-style sentences. Here goes.

One could pass from heavy-set young men with full chops of beard and fifty-pound packs on their backs to young, adolescent poetesses—pale as Ophelia and prim as Florence Nightingale. One could move from college boys in sweaters with hints of Hippie allegiance to Madison Avenue types in sideburns, straw hats, and a species of pill-taking panache. One could glide through decent, mildly fanatic ranks of middle-class professionals—suggestion of vitiated blood in their complexion—to that part of theater and show biz that dependably would take up cause with the cleaner cadres of the Left.

I think this flows better, and there's no annoyingly misused punctuation to break up the rhythm. I've taken the sentence and broken it into three sentences, striving for a poetic cadence in which each sentence begins with One could pass..., One could move..., and One could glide... You might disagree with my changes, but I'd rather read this than deal with misused semicolons, inappropriate relative pronouns, and commas that appear where they shouldn't. I sense the lyricism in Mailer's prose, and that's why I chose to begin each of my three sentences in a way that reflects the gentle lapping of a tide: each wave is similar to the previous one, but never quite the same. This rewrite makes Mailer's stylistic intent clearer... but if I were to be more brutal, I'd say there's a lot more that begs rewriting, here. There's still too much pretentious self-consciousness, I'd say. But maybe that's just how Mailer wrote.**

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*For what it's worth, a website called MasterClass (among others) offers a tutorial on how to diagram a sentence. If you're curious, click here.

**I expect some thinks-he-knows-it-all idiot to challenge my grammatical chops by reciting the canard that "You can never begin a sentence with a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, etc.)." This is one way to tell the real grammar Nazis from the fakes and the wannabes: the fakes and wannabes don't keep up with the times, and they tend to overcorrect by citing rules that are either outdated or nonexistent. Go visit a respectable authority like The Chicago Manual of Style and tell me where it says beginning a sentence with a coordinating conjunction is always verboten. At this point in the debate, feeling the pressure of actual facts and authoritative sources, some fake/wannabe grammar scolds retreat to the old, petulant, reality-denying "Well, the dictionary [or whatever reference] is wrong!" defense. I've been guilty of that myself, on occasion, but that's no excuse for the toxic combination of ignorance and arrogance on display. The dictionary is WRONG! Sure: sometimes, CMOS and your trusted dictionary can be wrong; I encounter this problem a lot as a student of religious studies when I see, for example, a term like dharma poorly and superficially defined in a dictionary. But the dictionary, more often than not, is right, even though it's not always clear as to whether a dictionary is more descriptive or more prescriptive.