If you want to write well, one of the stylistic elements that you need to pay heed are those nasty dangling modifiers, whether in participial, gerund, or phrasal form. Although sometimes insidious to spot, these grammatical faux-pas will tinge your writing and confuse your readers? train of thought. Much like a poorly segued musical transition, dangling modifiers impinge somewhat strangely on the ear and often lend unintended yet grotesque humor to your writing in general.
In the following sentence, see whether you can detect the dangling modifier:
It was early morning. George rose from his bed taking his furry slippers with him and began his march downstairs where breakfast awaited him.
In this complex sentence?as grammarians would call it?complex because the sentence contains the independent clause, ?George rose from his bed taking his...downstairs? and the subordinate clause, ?where breakfast awaited him,? we have a ?not-so-obvious? dangling participial phrase. The reason that the ?dangler? is not so obvious is because the intent of the writer is obvious from the context; we know who is taking the slippers. Yet the way the sentence is structured, the bed, by its juxtaposition to the participial ?taking,? is the one doing the taking. One could argue that this is splitting hairs and being overly pedantic, yet this example, by the very insidiousness of the ?dangler,? demonstrates very well that if we are not careful with these grammatical structure razers in cases such as these, we would become very sloppy in more serious cases, in which the meaning becomes grotesquely distorted.
Though the meaning be clear in the previous example, this does not make the infraction pardonable. A good writer needs to be aware of these ?danglers? and has to conform his writing so as to minimize their occurrence. We are all guilty of these infractions and should not stop writing because our writing is not always perfect. Since the dangling modifier is such a common error?even among good writers?we need to be ever aware of its stealthy manner of sneaking into our prose. We should rewrite the above by making any of the following changes:
Rising from his bed, George took his furry slippers with him and began his march downstairs where breakfast awaited him.
Or,
Taking his furry slippers with him, George rose from his bed and began his march downstairs where breakfast awaited him.
If you want to write well, beware the ?dangler.? And go get a good book on grammar and learn about the language you wish to express yourself in. This will be well worth your while. More on this in another article. Stay tuned...
Joe is a prolific writer of self-help and educational material and an award-winning former teacher of both college and high school mathematics. Under the penname, JC Page, Joe authored Arithmetic Magic. As a result of this publication, Joe was invited to be a guest on the television show the Book Authority. Joe is also author of the charmingly pithy and popular ebook, Make a Good Impression Every Time: The Secret to Instant Popularity; the seminal collection of verse, Poems for the Mathematically Insecure, and the creator and scriptwriter of an upcoming DVD series that is both visionary and highly educational. The diverse genre of his writings (novel, short story, essay, script, and poetry)?particularly in regard to its educational flavor? co continues to captivate readers and to earn him recognition.
Joe propagates his teaching philosophy through his articles and books and is dedicated to helping educate children living in impoverished countries. Toward this end, he donates a portion of the proceeds from the sale of every ebook. For more information go to www.mathbyjoe.com.
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