# The meaning of “fledged” in this example
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-meaning-of-fledged-in-this-example/441637
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 17, 2008, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-meaning-of-fledged-in-this-example/441637 "2008-03-17T09:42:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@DangleYourModifier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DangleYourModifier)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2008, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-meaning-of-fledged-in-this-example/441637/1 "2008-03-17T09:42:01Z")
This question was asked in my daughter’s Grade 6 class. (I am quoting from memory)
They were given a short extract from “The Lord of the Flies” (btw am I using the quotation marks correctly – wouldn’t want to upset [this OP](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=459572) )
Draw the following sentences so the meaning is clear:
The young saplings fledged the pink rock
She came to me and asked the meaning of the word fledged. Looking it up we found the following definitions:
fledge
–verb (used with object)
1. to bring up (a young bird) until it is able to fly.
2. to furnish with or as if with feathers or plumage.
3. to provide (an arrow) with feathers.
–verb (used without object)
4. (of a young bird) to acquire the feathers necessary for flight.
–adjective
5. Archaic. (of young birds) able to fly.
From what I could gather the word has to do with feathers and growing up. Neither of those definitions make the meaning of the sentence clear. If the author was using the word poetically the closest I can come is that the saplings looked like feathers covering the rock. Either way I think this is a bad example to use to teach the kids extra vocabulary.
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### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2008, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-meaning-of-fledged-in-this-example/441637/2 "2008-03-17T09:58:46Z")
> [@](#):
>
> 1. **to furnish** with or **as if with feathers or plumage**.
That’s the one. Compare Keats’ “Ode to Psyche”
> [@](#):
>
> …
> Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane
> In some untrodden region of my mind,
> Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,
> Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:
> Far, far around shall those dark-cluster’d trees
> **Fledge** the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep;
> …
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### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2008, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-meaning-of-fledged-in-this-example/441637/3 "2008-03-17T10:08:13Z")
See [here](http://lib.ru/GOLDING/masterflyes_engl.txt_Piece40.02): Golding uses fledged elsewhere in LotF as a poetic description likening trees to fledging on arrows.
> [@Golding](#):
>
> The shore was fledged with palm trees. These stood or leaned or
> reclined against the light and their green feathers were a hundred feet up
> in the air. The ground beneath them was a bank covered with coarse grass,
> torn everywhere by the upheavals of fallen trees, scattered with decaying
> coconuts and palm saplings. Behind this was the darkness of the forest
> proper and the open space of the scar. Ralph stood, one hand against a grey
> trunk, and screwed up his eyes against the shimmering water. Out there,
> perhaps a mile away, the white surf flinked on a coral reef, and beyond that
> the open sea was dark blue. Within the irregular arc of coral the lagoon was
> still as a mountain lake-blue of all shades and shadowy green and purple.
> The beach between the palm terrace and the water was a thin stick, endless
> apparently, for to Ralph’s left the perspectives of palm and beach and water
> drew to a point at infinity; and always, almost visible, was the heat.
Beyond that, there’s also the imagery of the boys growing up and a foreshadowing of the violence that is to come.
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### Author:  [@DangleYourModifier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DangleYourModifier)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2008, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-meaning-of-fledged-in-this-example/441637/4 "2008-03-17T10:41:57Z")
Thank you.
It makes more sense now that I see more examples. Still seems like an ambiguous word for a Grade 6.
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### Author:  [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2008, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-meaning-of-fledged-in-this-example/441637/5 "2008-03-17T12:57:27Z")
[QUOTE=DangleYourModifier]
They were given a short extract from “The Lord of the Flies” (btw am I using the quotation marks correctly – wouldn’t want to upset [this OP](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=459572) )
[/QUOTE]
If you really want to know, put a title of a book in italics, not in quotation marks. Use quotation marks for chapters of a book, or poems, or the titles of articles in a magazine or newspaper.
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2008, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-meaning-of-fledged-in-this-example/441637/6 "2008-03-17T20:49:55Z")
[QUOTE=DangleYourModifier]
btw am I using the quotation marks correctly
[/QUOTE]
[del][No, you aren’t.](http://grammartips.homestead.com/titles.html)[/del]
Edit: Sorry, someone beat me to it.
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### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2008, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-meaning-of-fledged-in-this-example/441637/7 "2008-03-17T20:58:00Z")
I’m trying to figure out what it means to “draw” a sentence.
-FrL-
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2008, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-meaning-of-fledged-in-this-example/441637/8 "2008-03-17T21:00:57Z")
[QUOTE=Frylock]
I’m trying to figure out what it means to “draw” a sentence.
-FrL-
[/QUOTE]
It probably means to diagram the sentence. You’ve diagrammed sentences in school before, I’m sure.
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### Author:  [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2008, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-meaning-of-fledged-in-this-example/441637/9 "2008-03-17T21:05:43Z")
[QUOTE=Frylock]
I’m trying to figure out what it means to “draw” a sentence.
-FrL-
[/QUOTE]
I think it means to draw a diagram or tree to clarify the syntax. However, all that you need to know to do that is that “fledged” is a verb with “The young saplings” and subject and “the pink rock” as object.
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2008, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-meaning-of-fledged-in-this-example/441637/10 "2008-03-17T21:08:27Z")
I’m actually thinking drawing the sentence might mean drawing a picture of what it expresses. But maybe my impression of what people do in sixth grade is a little off.
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### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2008, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-meaning-of-fledged-in-this-example/441637/11 "2008-03-17T21:43:45Z")
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
It probably means to diagram the sentence. You’ve diagrammed sentences in school before, I’m sure.
[/QUOTE]
Yes but as others have pointed out you don’t need to know the meaning of “fledged” to diagram that sentence. Moreover, diagramming a sentence would almost never make it clear what the sentence means.
-FrL-
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### Author:  [@DangleYourModifier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DangleYourModifier)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2008, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-meaning-of-fledged-in-this-example/441637/12 "2008-03-18T06:15:14Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I think it means to draw a diagram or tree to clarify the syntax. However, all that you need to know to do that is that “fledged” is a verb with “The young saplings” and subject and “the pink rock” as object
They meant draw a picture so that they can see whether you understand the sentence. I don’t think they’re doing diagrams yet.
> [@](#):
>
> I’m actually thinking drawing the sentence might mean drawing a picture of what it expresses. But maybe my impression of what people do in sixth grade is a little off.
That’s the one
> [@](#):
>
> If you really want to know, put a title of a book in italics, not in quotation marks. Use quotation marks for chapters of a book, or poems, or the titles of articles in a magazine or newspaper.
Thanks for the tip.
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### Author:  [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2008, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-meaning-of-fledged-in-this-example/441637/13 "2008-03-18T08:11:18Z")
[QUOTE=Frylock]
Yes but as others have pointed out you don’t need to know the meaning of “fledged” to diagram that sentence. Moreover, diagramming a sentence would almost never make it clear what the sentence means.
-FrL-
[/QUOTE]
It could in an “eats, shoots, and leaves,” sort of way.
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2008, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-meaning-of-fledged-in-this-example/441637/14 "2008-03-18T08:14:38Z")
In some infrequent cases, it could help disambiguate between two different possible parsings, but it’s not as though it will help you grasp the meaning of the sentence if you haven’t come very close to pinning a few possible interpretations to choose from already. I mean, if you don’t know what “shoots” and “leaves” mean in the intended sense, then you’re not going to be aided greatly in understanding the sentence simply by learning that they’re nouns rather than verbs. If you don’t know what “blek” and “florge” mean, then a sentence diagram of “The blek florged merrily along” won’t tell you much at all about its meaning; indeed, most of us could diagram it without having any idea what it meant.
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### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2008, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-meaning-of-fledged-in-this-example/441637/15 "2008-03-18T13:30:59Z")
Colour ignorance fought: I’ve never come across such a term. I used to be told to deconstruct or show the elements or analyse (thank you, Mr Balme) the sentence.