“Let’s talk about sentence structure,” the English teacher tells her second graders. “Who remembers what we studied in class, yesterday?”
Clara raises her hand. “There are simple, compound and complex sentences.”
“Very good, Clara, thank you.”
As the teacher is about to continue, Tracy raises her hand.
“I have sentences,” she says. “I’m not sure who wrote them.” Tracy has written the sentences in her notebook, and shows them to teacher Julie.
“My goodness,” teacher Julie says. “Who wants to read these sentences, aloud? And, we’ll write them on the board.”
Several students volunteer, and young Matt is chosen.
“She was thrown off The View like a dog, Zero T.V. Personas,” he begins reading. “Now Wallace is a third-rate lapdog for Fake News MSDNC (Concast). Doesn’t have what it takes!”
Laughing and waving her hand, another student, Betty, repeats: “She was thrown off The View like a dog, Zero T.V. Personas.”
Is the first sentence a complex sentence, and is the second sentence a simple sentence, Betty is wondering.
Scratching her head, teacher Julie says, “That’s a good question, Betty, what do you think they are?”
“They’re pretty darn simple, I’d say,” says Betty. “That’s what my mom and dad were saying, as they were reading some tweet someone wrote. I think they said simple. Or was it simpleton?”
Henry’s waving his hand. “That last sentence is an incomplete sentence, isn’t it? And I see poor punctuation and misspelled things, like Concast. Anyone who’s got cable at home knows that’s poor spelling. And MSDNC!”
Clara’s raising her hand again, and jumping up and down. “I know who Wallace is! I guessed it! I guessed it! It’s Nicolle Wallace! She’s on that MSNBC – not MSDNC – TV show. And TV doesn’t have a period between T and V. Even kindergartners know that!”
“Yeah!” yells Jamie. “They do! They do! They’re smarter than whoever wrote the sentences.”
“For suuuure,” chimes in Betty.
“Okay, class, let’s calm down,” urges teacher Julie. “These sentences could stand some work.”
“Should we fix them up?” Betty asks. “We can do that, we can make them all correct. Who wrote them?”
“Yeah, who wrote ‘em?” asks Biff, the class bully. “I wanna know. Whoever wrote that stuff needs a good lesson!”
Harvey Radin is former senior vice president in charge of corporate communications and media relations, Bank of America Western Region. He makes his home in Redwood City, CA.