I'm looking for flowcharts depicting the oddities of English
January 22, 2013 1:34 AM   Subscribe

In my lab I was hired in part so as to have a native speaker of English on hand to improve the general knowledge of the language if only by osmosis. So, deciding to take my duties seriously, the other day I drew the Oh Snap Flowchart on the whiteboard of our break-room where it was a big hit, what other amusing flowcharts are there floating around the internet that I could use to explain any of the various oddities of the English language?

Bonus points for being especially funny, helpful, or depicting English that is especially arcane or from an American dialect.
posted by Blasdelb to Writing & Language (5 answers total) 36 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: This is a good general guide to English as spoken by British people, and particularly useful to Europeans.
posted by daveje at 3:08 AM on January 22, 2013 [9 favorites]


Probably not appropriate for a work situation, but I found this dirty talk flowchart pretty amusing.

Also, your flowchart totally cracked me up.
posted by the essence of class and fanciness at 3:11 AM on January 22, 2013 [6 favorites]


Best answer: The Indexed website might have some good ones for you, especially if you filter with the language tag.
posted by Houstonian at 4:26 AM on January 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Best answer: from a recent MeFi thread: unspeakableness
posted by Akeem at 4:43 AM on January 22, 2013


Best answer: I can't decide if this exactly fits your criteria, so I'll post it anyway...

I like the flowcharts for songs. Here's the one for Hey Jude. There are others for Whip It, Total Eclipse of the Heart, etc. Here's one from xkcd which shows the use of the word NA in songs.

Ok, more on topic - The Oatmeal has some, and HyperboleandaHalf has some cartoons about grammar (not flowcharts), too.

If you google for "grammar flowcharts" you'll get more serious ones. Add the word "humor" and you get stuff like this list of grammar errors and this compilation of grammar funny stuff.

You can also browse around on TheGrammarNazi for more inspiration.
posted by CathyG at 12:46 PM on January 22, 2013


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