Last night I was reading a book by P.G. Wodehouse, that magician of syntax. I came across two sentences in a row that caused me to smile when I considered diagramming them.

1. Here he is, an hour before my important dinner, with some of the most wealthy and exclusive people in New York expected at any moment, refusing to put on his dress-clothes and saying that all a man that is a man needs is to shoot his bison and cut off a steak and eat it by the light of the western stars.

2. And what I want to know is what I am to do?



Sometimes I dream of sponsoring a Real People's Olympics, with competitions such as going into a huge supermarket and finding the toothpicks with dispatch and finesse. Another event could be diagramming sentences like these.