I still feel really inadequate in this area
Do you feel it causes problems in your day-to-day life? If so, how? Or is it more that you feel like you have an embarrassing knowledge gap? I did eventually learn a lot of grammar terms when I took French. I never knew the terms before and I've forgotten what many of them mean. For example, I can remember the phrase "the pluperfect" without remembering what specifically it refers to. I can see how this could bother some people. It doesn't bother me, and it doesn't seem to bother the professors who pay me to edit their journal articles.
I sometimes feel that people who are obsessive zealots about technical grammar terms, sentence diagramming, etc., need to relax a little and learn to rely more on their natural ear. (I am not intending to specifically refer to anyone here. I just think that good writing is more art than science. There are rules, certainly, but there is not a formula.)
