Did you ever feel this way?....

[Feather Kana]

I'm about to ask something that is difficult for me to put into words, but...

Is there anyone else here besides me who is instinctively super-good at spelling, grammar, and punctuation and yet, if called upon to describe words and their properties, would stand there tongue-tied?

This is difficult for me to describe. I can smell most inaccuracies fifty miles away. I know how to use the English language very well. I have a decent spelling ability and one of my best skills happens to be punctuation.

Yet, if someone were to ask me, for example, to diagram a compound sentence, I am unable to do so. I wonder why that is? I mean, I know what a noun is, same as everybody else past second grade. I know how to use words. It is deeply ingrained. But if asked how they work, how I know it, to physically write out the properties of each sentence....I don't understand why I fail to do so.

I was always in the advanced classes in school when it came to Language Arts, but this one area and this area alone, I flopped each and every time. I puzzled my teachers repeatedly because they saw what I could do and understood I had a grasp of what they were teaching better than most, but when trying to pin labels to it....

Does anyone else know the sort of problem I am talking about? I've noticed this same problem permeating into other areas of my life, as well, to an extent. For example, giving directions, when I know the route but cannot pin labels to it to tell others, or names....I seldom forget a face, but I can never pin a name to said face. Isn't that sad?  

[Present Uncertainty]

You... must be a clone of me or something. eek

I am exactly the same way. Ask me to proofread, and I'm awesome, but ask me to explain why certain things were changed, and I stand there and look stupid. Oh, well.  

[Feather Kana]

Maybe the other way around, as I am probably older than you. 4laugh

Well, at least I'm not alone then. I've even wondered if I have some sort of disorder that lets me superlearn in one way and yet blinds my ability to express it another. I'll know how to use the words, but I can't stand there and verbally tell someone which are verbs, which are adjectives, or whatever. I look like an idiot then, even though I've used the words perfectly.  

[Tromper]

I can't say that I've ever felt exactly like that. It's more like the oppisit of it. I can't really spell (I offten screw up on really simple words), and my grammer offten sucks. But I know the parts of a sentence and all that other stuff. I think I can do that because I took three years of Latin and in Latin you HAVE to know those thing so you can get the translations right or you'll end up with everything in the wrong order. xd  

[Feather Kana]

I almost always know what I am reading when I see Latin even though I can't tell you what the exact words mean individually. Same for ripping apart sentences to point out this and that about them. I know it, it makes sense to me, but giving voice to the mechanics I understand so well is beyond me.  

[Organic Shadows]

Yeah, that's pretty much me. I'm sort of brain-dead right now, so I'll type this then go to bed. Maybe edit later.  

[Soujiroh Nishikado]

I don't believe that I have ever felt that way. Maybe it's because English is my easiest subject :/. However, I do know where you're coming from, as I have friends just like you.  

[The MoUsY spell-checker]

I'm the opposite. I can label different parts of sentences (nouns, verbs, etc.), and I can spell, but I'm not actually that good at using the English language. (I'm good at spelling, grammar, and punctuation. It's just that I'm not good at expressing myself.)

Then again, English is my second language but I use it more often than my first language, and this kind of arrangement probably means that I naturally think more about how the language actually works. I also study linguistics, so that makes a difference too.  

[Shikaeii]

Aww, poor you. I can do the easy bits for labelling the basic sentences.. but not the hard ones sweatdrop
I know a good book that labels every kind of sentence very descrpitively, and easy to understand... Too bad I forgot the title stressed

I shall edit this message when I either remember, or see the cover of the book again lol  

[Feather Kana]

That's just it....I remember memorizing all that information in school and elsewhere, but when called upon to use it in any technical way ("This was the adjective, the predicate is the subject of the sentence, this was the noun....") Poof, I'd not remember a thing.  

[Patron with a Mission]

Strangely....I have had that problem.

I can correct near any paper with horrifying accuracy, but when the student asks for an explanation, I usually stammer until I can think of the rule that explains it.

One way to prevent that, though, is to retrain yourself in the rules of grammar and punctuation. This allows you as well as anyone you're correcting to understand the rules better. 3nodding  

[MyOwnBestCritic]

I always forgot what appositives are. I used them all the time, but I couldn't remember what they were. Thanks to an intense repetition session, I can now say that an appositive describes words or phrases that refer to the same person or thing and have the same relationship to other sentence elements. Jimmy, the cool kid, always had his hat on backwards.

I can only manage through repetition, though. I know a lot of stuff I'm not supposed to domokun  

[Amaya84]

Oh my goodness; I thought I was the only one! You are not insane. Either that, or we're both insane! blaugh  

[Shygoddess]

Wow, I thought my brain was going slow but I am not the only one. I can put together a good explanation on paper but to explain it in words makes me stupefied.  

[-SinRepentRepeat-]

ZeoViolet

I'm about to ask something that is difficult for me to put into words, but...

Is there anyone else here besides me who is instinctively super-good at spelling, grammar, and punctuation and yet, if called upon to describe words and their properties, would stand there tongue-tied?

This is difficult for me to describe. I can smell most inaccuracies fifty miles away. I know how to use the English language very well. I have a decent spelling ability and one of my best skills happens to be punctuation.

Yet, if someone were to ask me, for example, to diagram a compound sentence, I am unable to do so. I wonder why that is? I mean, I know what a noun is, same as everybody else past second grade. I know how to use words. It is deeply ingrained. But if asked how they work, how I know it, to physically write out the properties of each sentence....I don't understand why I fail to do so.

I was always in the advanced classes in school when it came to Language Arts, but this one area and this area alone, I flopped each and every time. I puzzled my teachers repeatedly because they saw what I could do and understood I had a grasp of what they were teaching better than most, but when trying to pin labels to it....

Does anyone else know the sort of problem I am talking about? I've noticed this same problem permeating into other areas of my life, as well, to an extent. For example, giving directions, when I know the route but cannot pin labels to it to tell others, or names....I seldom forget a face, but I can never pin a name to said face. Isn't that sad?

Dear lord, we're almost exactly alike.
That is part of the reason why I struggled in Latin.